Five on Friday

We just got home from New York City and we're beat so this will be a quick five.

1.  Our hotel, NobleDen, was on the corner of China Town and Little Italy, we figure that's about as close as we'll ever get to heaven.  A boutique hotel, had only around 17 rooms.  We were on the top floor and had a balcony.

2.  The badger went with us and he really enjoyed the balcony.  But he got a bit tipsy and some of the photos are a little blurry.

3.   One of the meals we had in Little Italy was the best Italian food we'd ever had.  Garlic bread, Chicken Cacciatore and Spaghetti with garlic and olive oil.  We also had a House Salad that had the most heavenly dressing on it.  We were going to order 2, but the waiter said 1 would feed us both and he was right.

Our restaurant, small, but wonderful

3.  We rode the Hop on-Hop Off Bus to sightsee.  But we had to go to the Empire State Building to turn in our vouchers and pick up our tickets.  The hotel said we could take the subway, but we chose to walk, somewhere between 3 and 4 miles, on city streets and dodging about a million people.

Empire State Building from the back.  We didn't go up as we'd done that on an earlier trip to NYC



4.  We did the southern loop of the bus tour first as we wanted to see the Twin Tower Memorial.

The names of all who died there are written on the frame that goes around the memorial.  It was very moving.



5.  We loved walking through the Chinese markets each day.











That's just some of our adventures, what a great city, but I'm just a country girl at heart and I could not live in a city that big.
Do join Amy and the other bloggers at Five on Friday.

Five on Friday

It's that time of week, time to join Amy and the other bloggers at Love Made My Home for this weeks Five on Friday.

We've had a beautiful week, mostly in the 70's feeling more like spring than winter and I have no complaints.  The garden is happy and everything is growing.

They Hyacinths are up out front, we have pink, blue and white.

And just look at my peas all growing in rows!

The Azaleas are in bloom.

Everything is growing

And my fifth thing is something I'd like your opinion on.  Valentine's Day I was watching the local news, something I only do to get to the weather and they led off with a sweet story about a couple who had been married for 72 years and still sang to each other (Let Me Call You Sweetheart), they were so cute.  They then followed this feature up with a lengthy report on domestic violence.  I thought the juxtaposition of these two features was horrible.  They didn't need to run the domestic violence feature on Valentine's Day and certainly not right after the first feature.  It was totally tasteless of them.  Am I being over sensitive?

That's my five, hope you have a great weekend.

Laundry Room

This is my laundry room and the view from it.  Mac has turned it into a plant nursery and starts a lot of seeds there.  If I'd taken the picture a few minutes earlier you would have seen my ironing board.  i don't iron much, mainly pillowcases, and today was the day.
We've had a dribble of rain today and loads of wind.  Hate walking in the wind there are always branches coming down.  Today the trees were squeaking which means that branches were rubbing against other branches and that's not a good sign.
Time to go cross stitch again.

Happy Valentine's Day

It is a beautiful Valentine's Day!  We don't go all elaborate on Valentine's, but we do exchange cards and small gifts.  I don't want to say we're chalk and cheese, but we are chalk and chocolate.  Mac got the cheese, a wonderful Dry Monterrey Jack and I got the chocolates, Lindor truffles and Reese Peanut butter chocolates, both to be eaten very slowly so they'll last.

Worked out in the garden getting my cabbages planted, very, very late.  And the seeds were so tiny I'll be thinning them forever.
The sugar snap peas are up and I'm hoping the squirrels quite stomping on them.  They don't eat them, but they're walking all over them.
Mac has gone off fishing for a couple of hours.  He loves to fish and this is the first time he's gone in forever.  He's strictly a catch and release fisherman, it's the thrill of the hunt that he enjoys.
I baked us a tiny Valentine's cake, it's red velvet with chocolate frosting and we'll have it tonight.  Hope you have a great day.

Five on Friday

Time to join in with Amy and the other bloggers at Love Made My Home for our weekly Five on Friday.  It's been a beautiful week, till some cold air slipped in last night, but never fear, it will be back up in the 70's tomorrow.

My first item is a pillow I made.  At Christmas I saw, and Lord knows where, a pillow with a plaid stag on it, I loved it.  So I ordered a grey pillow cover, bought some plaid material, had Mac trace a stag on the internet, pinned the pattern to my plaid and cut it out, sewed it on my pillow and thought I was through.  Mac looked at it, said it was nice, but that I should have done a bear.  Well I had a small template for a bear, so back upstairs I went, traced the bear onto some card stock, cut out my fabric and sewed it onto the back of the pillow.  Now I'm well and truly done.

My Second is a Fall table topper I started last year and finally finished this week.

My Third is a small wooden heart box that I painted to store my treasures.

My Fourth is a gift from Mac, he went shopping while I was visiting the dermatologist.  He found this tape measure and knew I'd love it.  He said they also had a screwdriver, hammer and pliers to match.  Must have, just don't want anything else burned off to get them.

And my Fifth.  I have to begin by stating categorically that I don't, with 2 exceptions like musicals.  I find them maudlin, melodramatic and usually with mediocre music.  One of my 2 exceptions was on tv last night, GIGI.  My other exception is Camelot (I saw it live in Chicago with Michael York as Arthur) .  I love Gigi, so well cast, beautifully filmed and lovely music.  My two favorite songs are I Remember It Well sung by Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier and The Night They Invented Champagne.  Mac likes this one too and he's even less of a musical fan than I am.

That's my Five, hope you have a great weekend.

Melisandre

Today was the day for my semi-annual meeting with Melisandre, the lady with the blowtorch or in other words my dermatologist.  She burned a dozen or so places off of me, but said that they were all minor and that things looked pretty good.  I asked her if I was ever going to quit growing these things and she said probably not.  Oh well, I'm good for another six months.

A Sad Confession

I hate dusting, hate it with a passion, would rather clean toilets.  How sad is that!  But today I broke down and dusted our bedroom.  A room that has way too much wood  and fiddly stuff in it.  Armed with dust cloth, spray and a Swiffer I did battle and it's done.  My eyes are itchy and my nose keeps twitching because most of the dust ended up in them.  As I usually say, I could have built another cat with the amount of fur I took out of there.
Glad it's done, won't do it again till I start feeling way too guilty or I start having asthma attacks, which ever comes first.

The bears say that if I stir up any more dust they're riding out!

Super Bowl Sunday

Go Falcons!!!  Though if I'm absolutely honest I think the New England Patriots will probably win, Brady is a great quarterback.
In keeping with that bird theme (Falcons), look who came to visit in the backyard.  Miss Kitty got up right close and personal and then decided that given their size, that moving to the boat was a good option.
Though we have Canadian Geese around most of the year, it's only this time of year we get the mated pairs.  They frequently build a nest on the island out in our lagoon.  Some years we see the babies, often we don't.  Unfortunately lot of predators around.
But I always enjoy seeing them.

Saturday Doings

Well not much doing, the weather has turned cold, it's only in the 50's today.  I'm such a wimp, on our walk this morning I was bundled up as if an Arctic front was moving through.
Went upstairs to glue my Godzilla puzzle together, the puzzle came with the glue/modpodge, whatever the stuff was.  The directions were all in Japanese, but there was a picture, so I made my usual mess and hoped for the best.  Want to next glue it to some cardboard and frame it.  Mac just showed up with the cardboard, he'd gone upstairs already and measured, now just need a frame.
Finally managed to get one of my Christmas presents upstairs.  It's  going to be my Advent Calendar. I'm going to paint it, havent's decided on white, red or cherrywood stain, with the middle drawer being green.
Time to wear my eyes out with some cross stitching, hope you're having a good Saturday.s

Five on Friday

It's a beautiful day here in the swamp with temperatures in the 70's, how nice is that.  I've been busy making vegetable soup, with pasta and beans, so I guess I could claim it's Pasta Fagioli, doing laundry and working on the never ending cross stitch.
And of course it's Friday and time to join Amy at Love Made My Home and the other bloggers for Five on Friday.

First is the soup I've made, the whole house smells wonderful.

Second is the spring afghan I've been working on.  I work on the cross stitch tell my eyes cross and then I switch to the afghan for a while.

Third is the teapot Mac bought me.  It's Victorian and as nearly as I can tell from the registration mark on the bottom it's from 1859.  The rest of the mark is too worn to read.

It looks white in the picture, but it's really a soft, soft blue

This is what the registration mark should tell you, but even with a magnifying glass I couldn't read mine.

Fourth are some of Mac's paintings.  I'm thinking I'm going to steal the mouse in the boot, at least for my header.

And Fifth is garden work.  I planted 20 Freesias, 3 rows of Sugar Snap Peas and a pot of Nasturtiums.

It's been beautiful here all week, a joy to be outside.  I hope we have 6 more weeks of winter as Puxatony Phil says we will and then a really long spring.

That's my five, have a great weekend.