A Day with Mom

This year, for my Mom's birthday I decided to shirk the traditional and instead gave her the gift of a coupon. Yes, yes, I hear it now... "that's so lame," or "...so, you couldn't pick out a real present?" I must protest, I personally think that spendng time with someone you care about is better than almost any present. This coupon was good for one free mother/daughter day to anywhere she wants.
















So, Mom picked Friday and went from there. We decided the itinerary would include a trip to our favorite craft store (where they were having their 5th anniversary sale), breakfast at Paul's Diner (a family favorite right next door to the craft store), a trip to the Johnson & Wales Culinary Museum, Lunch at Fire & Ice and a quick trip to another craft store we had been wanting to check out in RI.

Needless to say we were both pretty tired at the end of the day... Here are a few neat pictures we took at the museum:





















I inadvertently asked Mom to pose in the incredibly short face hole... we think it was meant for kids... oops!





















One of the many amazing examples of pastillage, which is "a sugar-based dough used for decorating and creating decorations for pastry, showpiece work and decorative molded forms."
















The sign from Moody's Diner (or a replica of it, I didn't catch the placard to see) which is in Waldoboro, ME. My family often talk about Moody's. You can check out the diner and it's history here.
















An old scale... yeah, that's pretty much it, but i thought it looked neat up close.
















A closeup of a milling machine, probably used to crunch up all sorts of yummy things.

this is what happens when Brian works late...

I decide that I haven't had a dessert in way too long and I get takeout from Olive Garden. Most people would think that I got my dinner there too, but no. No... I made dinner at home after picking up the dessert, which by the way is my favorite and called Torta Di Chocolate. Is is basically a molten flourless chocolate cake with zabaglione (see wikipedia for definition) and fresh strawberries on the side.
















The folks at the takeout counter were even nice enough leave it unheated so I could make it fresh at home when I was ready. Oh, and in case you are wondering, it isn't that horrible for you. I can eat it realitvey guilt free on weight watchers as long as I plan ahead. I <3 you Olive Garden

surprise metamorphosis

When Brian went out to grill out lunch today, we noticed this:
















A caterpillar must have gotten stuck between the glass and the screen of our slider door long enough to have it change into a butterfly. Neat huh? After, I flashed my camera at him a few times, we set him free and he fluttered off into the woods.

Tweet I had to share...

In case you don't follow my tweets, I thought this one pretty much summed up my evening after dinner:

Dinner Success!!

Ok, so I am very happy with how this came out! The recipe is Pan-Seared Chicken with Artichokes and Pasta and you can get it by clicking here. It is very flavorful and reasonably easy... not to mention healthy. Overall, the recipes by the folks at Cooking Light are all really good.

I think I'm going to start doing more recipe review posts from now on, since it might get me cooking more and induce extra creativity in my life. If anyone else tries this recipe out, let me know what you think.

Testing New Recipe Tonight

So, since I'm by my lonesome for most of the evening, I decided to cook something a) new and b) that the husband won't eat. I've been craving artichokes lately, so I went on to CookingLight.com and searched around for a bit until this one popped up: Pan-Seared Chicken with Artichokes and Pasta. It really looks like it has potential. So, I'll (hopefully) post the results later on this evening.

Yeay for spring.... or is it really summer?

So, now that it's spring and there are green things again, I finally have been getting back into photography. I took these two photos in between doing bits of yard work with a group of volunteers at one of our groups homes.

I couldn't believe just how warm it was today. My car said 88 once the thermometer settled down from being in direct sunlight for an afternoon. I must admit, while the heat is generally welcome, I wasn't so happy about it showing up today. We were all very warm and despite using my SPF 70, I still got a bit of a burn.

But... the flowers are planted and the the yard is cleaned up, so overall I'm pretty happy. I rewarded myself with a DD iced coffee for a good afternoon's work. Then I promptly took a nice long shower and a rather long-ish nap as well. I've been remarkably lazy since getting home and at the moment I'm reveling in the lovely cool breeze coming through our office windows. Ah.... contentment!