Something new for me to wear

Don't laugh, but this is the first pair of dressy slacks I've owned in about six years.  My weight has fluctuated and I prefer skirts, so I just haven't had a pair of slacks.

Now I have something to wear on those "wear slacks to Church" Sundays, right? ;-)

Spaghetti sauce and The Kitchen Counter Cooking School

Last month I read The Kitchen Counter Cooking School which was an eye-opening read for me.  I learned that you don't have to have mixes to make basic dinner foods.  You can use whole, fresh foods instead of packages to make almost anything.  I don't use tons of packaged foods, but I do use some.  I'm going to use fewer in the future.

Tonight I made spaghetti sauce sort-of from scratch.  I used canned tomatoes, but I did can them myself. 

1/2 lb hamburger cooked with
1/2 diced onion (the book tells how to do that easily and neatly)
1 minced garlic clove
Add:
1 quart diced tomatoes
1 pint tomato puree
salt
pepper
Italian seasoning, all to taste

That "to taste" is kind of new to me.  You're supposed to actually get a spoon and taste the food and see if you like it.  If not, change it.  Sounds basic, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

Good spaghetti dinner tonight!

Meal Plan Sunday

Monday: Spaghetti

 

Tuesday:  Mexican Breakfast Casserole

Wednesday:  Chicken Lo Mein

Thursday:   Chicken Nacho Bake

Friday:

Bill's painting project

Bill's car had trim in two colors--silver and matte black.  He wanted to go to all matte black so he took things into his own hands.

That is the hard top to the convertible and you're looking at the back window.  The top of the picture has the part of the back window that rests near the trunk.  Next he painted the grille and a couple of other parts.

 

I really urged him not to spray paint his Mercedes, but he did anyway.  So far it looks really nice.  I told him to check back with me in a year about that.

Do you have a gate like mine?

Here in Arizona backyard fences are often constructed from concrete block, which is nice because it is very low-maintenance and looks good too.  We have only one gate in ours and it goes to the back alley. 

The old gate, which was here when we moved in, never worked right as it always dragged on the ground and was hard to open.  Impossible, for some of the girls at times.

Bill built a very nice new gate from scratch, one that glides just above the ground.  It is really a pleasure to use.  Painted gates are common in our neighborhood vs. stained wood, so he decided it need a couple coats of paint and he had to decide what color.

After the recent front door painting, we considered the same orange, but instead asked the girls what color they wanted the gate to be.  Why not?  It faces into our yard and we can repaint it any time we need to.  Pink!  Purple!  Blue! 

Bill went to the hardware store and returned looking like the cat that swallowed the canary.  He had THREE cans of paint.  Pink!  Purple!  Blue!  The blue went on the alley side of the gate and you can see the other results here:

Look what curly hair + humidity look like!

Elizabeth has really pretty, curly hair.  During the winter when it is crackling dry here, her hair sometimes borders on straight.  See how it looks during the summer rainy season!

 

ANOTHER passport photo!

We got our visas and really, really thought we were done with passport photos, but NO!  In order to rent a car in Brazil, you have to show your International Driving License.  You can imagine that bit of news produced a little stab of fear in me, after the visa battle.

Luckily, it turns out getting the license is easy, not expensive, and the office is actually very close to the house.  However, part of the application is a set of passport photos which Bill has in abundance.  Except we couldn't find them.

Lucikly when I took my own pictures for my visa, I blogged about it and thus I just went back, followed the links and directions there and sent Bill's picture off, to Walgreen's this time, for printing.  I'll pick them up on my way to get the license.

I think this trip is going to happen!

How did I let this get away from me?

Haha, this month it's *my* book we're reading for the book club.  We all suggested a book almost a year ago and mine was the very last in the lineup.

I took the picture from amazon.com so you can't really look inside.  I don't think so anyway. :-)

But!  The book club meeting was moved up a week and on Monday I remembered with a start that I had less than two days to get my book read!  So now I'm off to finish the remaining 2/3 of the book because I absolutely won't have time to finish it tomorrow.  Adios for now!

Hostess gifts

When we travel later this month we're going to stay with friends of Kevin's in a couple of towns.  I want to bring them something that is kind of native to the United States and maybe to our area specifically. 

We live in the desert, so I've thought about bringing something like cactus jelly.

However, although I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find something like this, I'm thinking about making a pieced and quilted pillow cover for each family, and perhaps using a red-white-and-blue color theme as I did in this quilt I made last year:

That quilt is on my bed right now and I like it more with each passing day.  Anyway, I think the red-white-and-blueness of it is subtle enough to not shout UNITED STATES, yet is still American, don't you think?  I'm thinking I might make each cover the same as one of the five blocks with the small pieces, although I have to see what size pillow forms are to make it the right size.  Or I might use a different pattern.  I think I can buy the pillow forms here, then cram them into my luggage.  That will leave room when I come back for all the souvenirs, right?

The first thing I thought of this morning . . . .

. . . when I woke up was not that this is the month of my birthday, for which reason I always love September, but this is the month Kevin comes home!

In honor of that, I'm actually going to look at the pictures on his disc and choose one instead of throwing a virtual dart at the disc.

Funny boy.  I can clearly see he is in NO way touching that beautiful girl.