Birthday Fun!

BOY

PLUS BIRTHDAY CAKE

EQUALS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ENZO!

Wordless wednesday

Get on the TRAIN!

As seen in Hoboken!

Summer's Bounty in the kitchen

Most of my day today was spent managing food. In the morning, I went to Trader Joes and Wegmans. Friday I went to the Greenmarket at Union Square for fresh peaches, blackberries, raspberries, apricots and vegetables.

Right now I am away from home a long time for work. I'm tired of trying to find healthy food when eating out. The solution is to take more food with me. I am trying to eat fresh, whole foods, unprocessed.  It's a bit strange, but the more I eat whole foods, my cravings for other foods which are less healthy have diminished.

Today I cooked:

Roasted turkey breast

Roasted vegetables, check out the photo! Two kinds of eggplant, green and yellow squash, garlic, purple peppers and tomatoes from my garden.

Lunch was organic tempeh with lettuce and tomato on whole grain wrap.

I made turkey, broccoli, carrot and organic red quinoa salad for lunch Monday. Also berries with organic yogurt. Breakfast will be turkey, tomato and spinach on a pumpernickel bagel.

I cut up celery and carrots for snacking with hummus.  I love grazing, having small samples of any food.

Made tuna salad with celery and grapes for Tuesday.

Finished blending my nut mix.

Dinner, I was bad and had a white hot with string beans. Only some of you know the delights that a white hot brings to the taste buds~! A minor lapse that will not happen often.

I hope you are enjoying the bounty from your gardens or your local farmers- eat local, eat fresh!

Atlantic

A view from the Cape May lighthouse.  The ocean was a strange color yesterday, brownish, muddy blue. I can't help but wonder if it's unhappy by the oil spewing in the Gulf of Mexico.. when will we learn?

Nature's Gift

Adventures

I get very restless. I have a thirst for new and different places and activities.  I have heard about Ringing Rocks Park for a while but have never been there. It's only about an hour away.  It was a nice afternoon yesterday so I started off on my quest.

I missed the first turn off Rt 32 and had to take another road to get there. A tiny drive, you would miss it if you blinked. Another couple arrived when I did, and we finally found the trail through the woods to the boulders.
Definitely a strange place. The other people there were hammering away, some rocks ring more than others.

I started back on the trail to find the waterfall.  I had forgotten that the bugs are out and left home without bug repellent. Gnats are just so annoying when they fly in your face, and there are so many of them.  And then I came upon a guardian on the path.  I am no fan of snakes, and although he was small and harmless, I decided I would come back another day!

New Uniform!

I was headed up the Delaware today for dinner, and something caught my eye as I drove through Frenchtown.  I've always wondered how Frenchtown was given that name, but have yet to find the history.  Many towns along the Delaware were thriving at the turn of the century, due to the railroad that was built along the banks, the canals, and shipping traffic on the Delaware itself.
I stopped after dinner to see there is a new consignment shop. And in the window something quite extraordinary! How did this extravagant corset come to rest  this sleepy river town?  Your imagination could spend hours inventing stories about this outfit.  However, I think it makes a fitting uniform for my lovely group of jewelry designers I know from Etsy, the Jet Team.
. (With apologies to our chief blogger and all around super- man, Bob!)

Wealth of Roses

I'm just an average working gal. Don't have much money, but enough. But right now I do have a wealth of roses. We're going to have a rain storm later, so I had to go out to my two rose bushes and cut all that I could.  I have over a dozen, a bonus from my own garden!
The photo does not show the colors well. There are deep red blossoms from the Don Juan climber, and burnt red from the Cocoa Via.   I have had the Don for a long time now, the Cocoa I bought a few years ago for the front of my house. It is very thorny which discourages unauthorized picking of the blooms.

The best way to keep roses fresh is to keep them in a cool spot, change the water and clip the end of the stems every other day.  Also, make sure to remove any leaves from the stems in the water.  I know I will be enjoying my blooms for the rest of the week!

More fun in NYC

I really applaud whoever invented the small and smaller digital cameras. I try to have mine with me all the time.  You never know , especially in New York, when you will see something unusual.

For Ann

Happy Valentine's Day