Birthday, Pelee mums, autumn, mythology, pomegranates and baking cookies!

10-4-14

Sure did feel the love yesterday! Started off with a card and a Pelee mum, had one of the prettiest flower arrangements I've ever seen delivered (thanks sis), all of my kids called me and Joe and I had dinner out and then he went with me to the grocery store! I'm a lucky girl.

Being me, I looked up what exactly a Pelee mum is. Turns out, there's an interesting story behind them. Fun facts:

1. the first mum bred specifically to be sold in grocery stores during the fall
2. intended to last for one season only
3. indoor plants
4. hate fertilizer
5. require very little water
6. Drum roll here, the first mum to have it's own UPC code 

You may thank me later for this useless info that you will someday be shouting at the tv because it is the winning answer on Jeopardy or Millionaire!!

My brother emailed me this:

I love my brother.

Autumn is slowly making itself known, plants are dying off, mornings are cooler and my anole and frogs are making themselves scarce. Sadly, today I realized that I needed to bring in the hummingbird feeders. Haven't seen any of my little friends for over a week. For all of you, this means cold weather will soon be here and another winter of my whining will commence.

Upside is that it is time to start making soups and stews again. Tried out a great new recipe for potato, leek and ham soup. Backyard Produce came through again with another great box! I am looking forward to a winter of deliciousness!

Trying out some recipes with pomegranate over the weekend, one for pork tacos and one for quinoa and avocado salad. Never cooked with them before so this could be a good thing or it could be a complete disaster... 

Why pomegranate you may ask? Who was Ceres was the correct question on Jeopardy (which I am not ashamed to admit that I knew), this was followed by a yummy sounding recipe on Beat Bobby Flay the same night...

For those that didn't know, in Roman mythology the seasons were determined by Persephone the daughter of Ceres who was abducted by Pluto and taken to Haides. Her mother was not happy about this and as she controlled agriculture (the growing seasons) she turned everything cold. In order to appease her and have warm crop growing weather again a deal was struck to return Persephone to her mother however, while she is in Haides she ate six pomegranate seeds and was thus doomed to spend half a year below ground in Haides (autumn and winter) and the other half above ground (spring and summer). 

In Greek mythology, same story, change names to Prosperina and Demeter. 

And that boys and girls is how cooking with a pomegranate comes about!

In between times I plan on baking cookies (waiting on butter to soften as I type)! Baking is therapy for me, a way to pass time when I am extremely bored. My daughter kidnapped my grandson and off they went to visit my gorgeous grand daughters up north. Joe is working and the kids have been misbehaving so they are avoiding me. Those two are living on borrowed time! 

Cousin time is a good thing but I'm feeling left out and lonely so my nephew will be getting cookies next week... May save a few for Joe, he did carry in my groceries for me yesterday and buy me that gorgeous mum  :)

And the end result is:

Who needs grandma? We have a petting zoo and each other!

Your welcome Ant

Pumpkin Pie, Shark, Sleep Number, a cute little redhead and Kraft cheese!

9-30-14

Wow! What a great week this has been.

Backyard Produce sent me an absolutely fantastic box complete with a pumpkin. I am no fan of pumpkin anything, I have an electric felt covered, light up pumpkin for the neighbors to see as they drive by. With no kids at home and no kids out here trick or treating in the boonies, that is all I need. Everything that belonged to Halloween was given away to my sister and her Halloween crazy family. I will confess to missing my mechanical skeleton. "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out...through my stomach and out my mouth". As he sang, he creaked and his arms and legs moved. My favorite part of the ritual was to turn him on when older kids came to the door and then watch them freak out. (Left him off for the little guys, even I'm not that warped)!

That being said, Joe of course wanted to know why I didn't want to make a pumpkin pie. My answer was truthful and two part. Part one being I don't like pumpkin pie. Part two being that I used to buy it, he would eat one or two pieces, the rest would go rancid and I would throw it out. 

Made the mistake of telling this to my daughter who immediately said, "We love pumpkin pie and so does B". 

Grandma made a pumpkin pie. 

Sleep Number. This is very exciting. Many of you will remember that as part of Smiley360 I did a mission to check out the store and the DualTemp Layer.

The reward was a very awesome pillow. 

Sleep Number Coolfit Foam Pillow to be exact. 

I am in love! It is like sleeping on a fresh pillowcase all night long but you don't have to keep turning the pillow over. Huge plus (not sure if this pertains to all cats or just mine) the kids hate it! They have no desire to lay their furry bodies on my pillow at any time. It has been eight years since I slept on a pillow all by myself at home...

Sleep Number sweepstakes

Sending out some love to Kraft! Bought a bag of shredded cheese, brought it home, opened it Friday and it was not in top form. Looked high and low for the grocery store receipt and couldn't find it so figured I'd just shoot an email to Kraft and at least let them know in case it was more than just my bag. 

Email reply yesterday with a thanks for letting us know blurb, explanation for what could of happened and then a link for some coupons to use as a sorry this happened and we want to reimburse you for your $2.50 bag of cheese. I buy a good amount of cheese so some coupons will definitely be a good thing. Follow link and I now have 2 - $3.00 coupons for new cheese. Way to provide outstanding customer service!

#Kraftcheeserocks

This is the recipe I needed the cheese for, a take on chicken enchiladas. Made it yesterday (yes, I used a different bag of cheese)! Not sure I'm in love with the recipe as is, but definitely worth tweaking. The chicken chili the other night was a much bigger hit. Silver lining? I did find yet another reason to love Rachael Ray. I forgot to spray the pan before I baked the enchiladas, thought I was going to have a mess on my hands - turns out her stoneware is naturally non-stick!

Lucky me. Spent part of my weekend with the cute and adorable Mister O. This little man has to be one of the smartest kids I have ever hung out with. I am not just saying that because I am his Grandma! He catches on to things in a flash. He has no fear, he climbs, jumps, runs, chases cats, zooms cars, reads books, eats, (pretty much all at the same time) and is always smiling and laughing. Remember the old commercials for the Energizer bunny, he keeps going and going and going.

His folks like him to stay up until 8 so when he started rubbing his eyes at 7, had to get a bit creative. Put him in the bed at 8:01 and by the time I got to the door he was out! Slept straight through to 7 am. Had a total blast keeping up with him and hopefully his mom is going to forgive me for all of those new sounds he brought home...

Finally, to my pals at Sam's Club. Last laughs on you! My new Shark arrived and it is beyond awesome! They even threw in a few attachments that you didn't even offer. All that and free shipping too...

For those of you who told me to buy the Shark, I owe you!! As I messaged to my youngest, for the last few years, I feel like I was just pretend vacuuming. I cleaned all of the floors with the old vacuum yesterday so my oldest could borrow it while hers was in the shop. Today, I spent way too many hours cleaning floors repeatedly before the dust container stopped filling up. 

This was the first pass on the area in front of the sofa only...

Six hours later, Joe came in from work and not only could he tell the difference on the carpet, we could both smell the difference. Craziest of all, the sofa is a different color! I cleaned blinds, window sills, the outside of cupboards, dusted furniture and I even have an attachment for cleaning under appliances. I'm sure the novelty will wear off but for today, it was impressive.