JUNE FAVES

 June is well underway and I absolutely love it. I'm bascially living outdoors this month either in the backyard, or on the deck in the backyard, or at a lake, or in the woods and next week on a mountain top. And  at the end of the month, at the Atlantic! And every evening, outdoors until about 9 when it finally gets dark and the mosquitoes come out. June is just glorious in the Northeast and we are having a gorgeous...although a bit hot....this month. We've had hotter than usual days this week (it's been feeling more like July and the central air has been going on around 2 pm to cool our house down for sleeping). 

Besides the blessing of central air, I'm sharing FIVE blessings that top my list....called FAVES with other bloggers who do the same and we all link up at Susanne's blog.  Head over here to learn more and join in! 

FIVE FAVES

Noodle bowl with veggies, chicken
and their specialty spicy chili sauce

veggie miso ramen noodle soup

• DATE DAY!  After  church, Dave and I had a date for Sunday dinner. It was kind of spontaneous but because we both were more  dressed up than usual for church, and it was such a perfect late Spring day, we headed to a ramen noodle place in the next town over that Dave has been to, but that I had never experienced.  It was fantastic!  There were only a few people in there at 1:30 pm. I love living in a diverse region with lots of diverse, ethnic restaurants. This place is affordable and we will be back even though it's not right in our own town. Dave had the ramen noodle soup and I had the noodle bowl. Everything was delicious and we had a nice time to really talk about some upcoming vacation plans as well as the sermon we had just heard. I'm thankful I didn't have to cook on Sunday and for my husband suggesting a date day! 

Lake Bonita from the west side trail

SoulSteps Hikers
l-r: Shawna, Annette, me, Dave D

Lake Bonita from the east side trail 

• MORNING HIKE:  I had originally had 6 people signed up for a Tuesday morning hike but 1 person actually dropped out of the group entirely the day before  and the other person injured her knee so had to cancel.  The 4 of us decided to leave an hour earlier than planned so we began hiking at 9 AM.  We wanted to hike the 3 mile lake loop followed by the trail to another smaller lake named Lake Ann.  Nope. The air was starting to get super hot and humid, so we started on a side trail just to see what it was like and after .2 miles we turned around as it became super thick, ankle deep mud!  So we finished the loop trail at just 3.4 miles and called it a day. We all enjoyed this hike and it was my 4th time hiking around the very pristine Lake Bonita. (no boats are allowed on the lake so it is super clean).  The hike is only 30 minutes north of my home so we were home by 11:30! I'm thankful the members liked it as it was their first time on it. I'm also thankful we got the early start and that everyone was in agreement with it! 

growth!

• GROWING!  My buttercrunch lettuce is finally taking off and growing!  I've been so careful with this gardening in a pot thing.  I move it to under the umbrella during the hot sunny mid-day and today I'm bringing it indoors because we are expecting a severe thunderstorm later with a cold front coming through (Yay...temps back to the 70s where they belong!).  I'm so thankful that this weekend we will enjoy the first of some home grown greens. I read to pick the bigger leaves first leaving the centerl leaves to continue growing. 

Spring semester small group
l-r: Shawna, Jill, Anita, Maggie, Cindy

• DINNER ON THE  DECK: Tuesday night was the last night of the small group Bible study at my house. I'm now on break from leading a women's small group until mid-September when Autumn begins. We decided, since we were done discussing the book, to have a deck dinner. I provided 2 large chicken pesto pizzas from this place (We took a vote on which pizza we'd have) along with various sparkling waters, lemonade, and stuff for making rum and cokes and dark n stormies.  I also made cucumber water which was a big hit as it was a HOT evening. I'm thankful each person brought something to add to the meal: salad, chocolate brownies, an Indian pastry, Italian cookies (that platter was huge so I took it to the church the next morning and gave it to our pastoral and worship teams to enjoy as I didn't want all that sugar in the house), chips and 2 kinds of dip. We all had a great time of fellowship and  sharing what we would be doing this summer in the way of vacations. This was a fun group.  My friend Cindy, who used to go to our church, joined us this semester. She goes to a different church down in the town where she lives. I'm thankful to have led this great group of women and that we had a fun, relaxing evening on a perfect night that felt more like summer than Spring! 

Schroon Lake Town Park/Beach
central Adirondacks 

• SPONTANEOUS SWIM DAY! My two friends Maggie and Jill and I decided rather spontaneously to go to one of my fave lakes that they had never been to on Thursday morning.   Maggie gave me gas money and Jill paid for my iced coffee when we got to the village as I introduced them to the best coffee shop in the ADK. We set up in the shade under a large oak tree and I snapped this pic from my beach chair. We couldn't even sit in the sun it was so hot. It truly didn't feel like June. This mountain lake is huge and the town park is one of my fave  places in the central region of the ADK. Neither of them had ever been to the town park/beach or to swim in the lake!  They loved it. I had fun showing them around the village and then we swam, ate good food, and I had made a carafe of Mai Tai's which were a huge hit. The lake water was beautiful...we stayed from 10:15-2 pm. The village of Schroon Lake/the lake is about 1.5 hours north of where I live, located in the lower high peaks/upper central region of the Adirondacks. and because our schools are all still in session, the beach was basically just retired folks and a few families with preschoolers.  There was a family from VA there and we just think it's so funny that those children are done with school because we go until the last week of June! We had a blast and I'm so thankful we had a fun day. 

Maggie, me, Jill

Those things totally made me say "Thank You, God" .  Of course there are always more than 5 blessings to our weeks.. .....I should mention that another blessing that tops my faves would be the evening my husband Dave and I sat outdoors on the deck well past 9 pm just talking and sharing about our day and planning our upcoming Anniversary trip.  

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

Weekend Wrap-Up on a Monday!

 

Even in my third year of retirment, the weekend seems to fly by, and although I don't get up at 5 AM anymore on a Monday and can have a slower start to the day, the day still has its chores, errands, and obligations. Today was a tough one. It began with an early morning text, followed by a missed phone  call, then a 2nd call  from same person who at least this time left a voice mail. (I was in the shower) I tried calling back only to get no response. So started on another chore, only to have the phone ring from same person so this time I picked up. I wish I hadn't.  The conversation was draining. It was important but it was emotionally draining.  How do you help someone who doesn't acknowledge that they're in pain (emotional) and refuses to consider counseling. Sigh. But....I didn't let it spoil my day although it did cut into my day and I ended up missing a meeting with the group I volunteer with.  I went out to fill my tank and noticed the gas prices have fallen in our neighborhood by about 50 cents. I was pleasantly surprised. It's still ridiculously high but I guess it will continue to be so. After filling the tank, I had to take the long way to the grocery store as some road pavement was going on......not a great start to the day but I was determined to not let that annoyance ruin my day, either!  

As I drove I reflected on the weekend.  It was actually a really great weekend! 

Friday started with Dave working from home, and so I had worked on some hiking group issues, along with sending out the July hiking list to the members. That's 46 emails. I also include a special note to each person in the email. I technically have 56 members currently, but some of those are children and spouses of people who have signed up with just one email. 

Friday night was just a simple meal of homemade fish fillets (vegan for me)  with homemade tartar sauce and a zucchini/summer squash dish.  For our Friday evening treat, Dave thought it would be fun to go get ice cream from this place.  I ordered the chocolate chunk oat milk ice  cream and he had soft serve raspberry vanilla. We sat at one of the  tables watching the planes come in and just talked and talked for the longest time. It was a beautiful, feels almost like summer, evening.

This is what Dave's ice cream looked like: 

This is what my ice cream looked like (I chose to have a small in a dish):

 When we got home, it was dark so we sat out on the deck for a bit ( I have solar lamps/lanterns) and talked some more then came inside and I spent the rest of the night reading and working on hiking stuff. 

Saturday was a day where it was partly sunny/partly cloudy with a threat of thunderstorms (which we never got).  Dave and I slept in a bit, had breakfast together (Eggs on a waffle with vegan sausage and raspberries/blueberries), and then while I did some laundry folding and put fresh sheets on the bed, he got ready to go to his monthly gaming event in a city to the west of us.  I left around 10:30 to head up to these outlets to see if I could find 2 pairs of shorts from the LLBean Outlet.  I did!  I found black hiking/kayaking shorts for our end of the month vacation as well as a pair of chambray blue shorts, also for vacation for walking the Cape Cod National Seashore trail or for the Botanical Gardens/Heritage Museum.  I might wear a casual dress to the Battleship Cove as then I can go straight out to our Anniversary dinner and we won't have to go back to the hotel to change. At any rate, I was able to use my Bean Bucks so saved $20 there and the shorts were both on sale for 30% off!  The outlet store has items from the regular store anywhere from 25%-75% off.  

Here's pic of the exact hiking shorts I bought: 

and the casual day trip shorts

except the ones I bought are a lighter blue like chambray 

Since my sister Joy just lives 1 exit south of the Lake George outlets exit, I popped in to see her new paint job in her living room/dining area.  We ended up talking for almost 2 hours! It had been raining when I arrived in Lake George, but by the time I left Joy's the sun was back out and it was actually pretty hot! 

When I got back home, I did a little more housework, then did some reading and had quite a few emails to answer. 

Dave got home earlier than he planned so I ended up making dinner earlier than usual as he hadn't really had lunch. 

After dinner, we sat out on the deck and talked and then he wanted to do some stuff in his upstairs office, so I watched a really good movie on Netflix called Searching. It was very eye opening!!  It was about a teen girl who just seemingly disappears overnight and her dad, a widower, tracks her down via all of her social media content. This fictional family literally had their entire lives online. Yikes. Highly recommend the movie! 

We spent some time on the deck together chatting and then it was time for bed! 

Sunday was gorgeous. Dave had to go online and converse with the employees in India for about an hour so I made coffee, showered, read the morning paper, and then we were able to leave for church for the 11 AM service. We spent time after the service  chatting with friends and our oldest daughter and her bf and then Dave  suggested we have a lunch date, just the two of us, at a Ramen noodle place he had been to as it's near his  work but I had never been there. The food was amazing! The service was outstanding and the prices were so reasonable. We will definitely be back! They even have an extensive wine and beer list although I drank unsweetened iced tea. 

I chose one of the shredded chicken noodle bowls
that came with cucumbers, carrots, scallions, red pepper flakes,
 garlic, bean sprouts with hand pulled thin noodles. 
The sauce I ordered was the mild spicy soy vinaigrette
it was So good and the portion size was perfect!

Dave had the Veggie Ramen Noodles soup
 with Miso ...he said it was delicious 

After dinner, we took a scenic drive  over by his work along the Mohawk River and back home. We spent the late afternoon reading, and I made Lemon Blueberry Muffins for breakfast this week since it was raining outside.  The rain didn't last long though. The evening was very cool.  We were so full from our lunch date which was really more like Sunday Dinner so in the early evening, I had hummus and some veggies and cheddar cheese and Dave had a muffin and a zero beer. He wanted to do some gaming thing so I did some more reading after sending out hiking reminders for tomorrow's hike. 

It was a nice weekend! 

What did you do this weekend? 

Sunday Stealin'

 Today is a nice relaxing day.....currently it's raining a soft rain and the air smells so good. It's cooler today and alhtough the sun was plentiful this morning for church, it began to get  cloudy when we went out for lunch. I'm baking blueberry-lemon muffins and thought I'd play along with the Sunday Stealing meme found at this blog while I wait for them. 

10 Questions You Aren't Used To

1. What celebrity would you never want to meet? 

DT the former "celebrity" of The Apprentice and now the current  "leader" of our nation. Didn't like the show, couldn't stand him, and still can't. 

2. What do you label yourself as? 

 a Creative,  compassionate, flexible, organized progressive Evangelical. 

3. You can only have one sandwich for the rest of your life. You have every sandwich ingredient known to man at your disposal. What sandwich do you make?  

Egg salad on rye

4.An angel provides you with a lifetime supply of an alcoholic beverage of your choice.  What's it gonna be? 

A crisp gin and tonic

5.Have you ever built a snowman?

I was born and raised in central NYS (Think near Syracuse, NY)....what do you think??? YES of course. I even helped my daughters build them when they were little  although here in the Capital Region we didn't have the big dumps of snow multiple times a winter like where I grew up. 

6. If you could ask yourself a future question, what would it be? 

Am I leaving a good legacy of a life well lived for my children and hopefully future grandchild(ren)? 

7.  Have you ever baked your own birthday cake?

Nope. I don't really like cake. 

8.  What are cooler? Dinosaurs or dragons?  

I think dragons are pretty cool.  My sister-in-law's mom used to collect dragons of all kinds...stuffed, plastic, stone sculptures for the garden, etc

9.What do you like about babies?

I love to watch all the different developmental stages! And they're so very cuddly. (some)

10. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. What's the first rule you put in place? 

Love all people the way you want to be loved. 

Instead of stealing, let's build our own meme. Think of a question you'd like to ask and insert it here. 

My Questions:

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why? 

What's the most difficult thing you have ever done? 

Happy Sunday!

Saturday 9 Meme!

 

I used to love listening to Ricky Nelson on the "oldies" station and every once in a while I'll still hear one of his tunes. My mom and dad were married in 1952 and I was born in the very last month of 1959, so by the time I was a teenager in 1973, I rarely heard his music but I think my parents had one of his albums if I remember correctly. Since I like Ricky Nelson, I'm playing along with the Saturday 9 meme.  Head over here to join in! 

Saturday 9: For You (1963)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) In this song, Rick Nelson tells us he'd give his girl the stars from sky or a string of pearls. Have you more recently given or received a gift? What was it?

I gave my niece a birthday gift as she turns 18 today!  I bought her a gift card for Ulta.  

2) By the time this record was released, Rick was already a show business veteran. He had been a regular on his family's sitcom, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, since it began airing on radio when he was just 8. Most of us weren't child performers but many of us had chores around the house. When you were young, did your parents give you an allowance?

Yes. We didn't get an allowance for doing homework, practicing the piano for our weekly lessons, or for making our beds. We were given $3.00 from about 4th grade-9th grade each week for doing things like unloading the dishwasher or drying the dishes (we didn't get a dishwasher until I was 12), helping to fold towels and our own laundry, dusting our own bedrooms and helping to cook dinner or clear the table. My mom was a working mom so.....we all learned to pitch in. Once I got to high school, my dad gave me $5.00 a week.  And I began to babysit for church families and would sometimes make between 40-60$ a weekend for this one couple who were involved in community theater. I babysit for them until I graduated from high school! When my baby sister was born, I was 15, Joy was 13, and Hope was 11.  She (baby Jill)was a September baby and that next summer, when I was 16, Mom gave me $30.00 a week to babysit her from 8:45 AM-5 PM M-F as Mom went back to work in the insurance agency where she was a secretary. I loved having my own money! I bought my self my first 10 speed bike. 

3) The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet moved to TV, where fans saw Rick grow into a teen who drove a 1932 Roadster. The car really belonged to Tony La Masa, who collected classic cars and rented them out to TV and movie producers. Have you ever earned or raised money with your hobby?

my hobbies were reading, hiking, biking, playing piano so no I never earned money doing those things. 

4) Paul McCartney has called Rick Nelson an "underrated singer who could really carry a song" and said Rick was one of his influences. Who do you believe you have influenced, professionally or personally?

I know (because they've told me) that I've influenced both of my daughters and a friend who is a part of my book group.  I can't go into details on that. Professionally speaking, I know I've influenced some of the parents I worked with and their preK student with special needs because they've told me that.  It's a good feeling to influence someone for good. I'm thankful I've had opportunities to do so.  

However, in junior high school I was probably a bad influence on a couple of friends as we were always skipping classes or doing things we knew we probably shouldn't be doing! And I just remembered!  I influenced a student teacher I had once to become a Special Needs PreK teacher instead of a public school teacher and she was so thankful when I ran into her a few years later!!  (Special Ed Preks here in NYS are  private center- based programs, not the public schools). I also influenced my church friend Mindy from years ago (as in 1992!) to go for the fellowship I had done at U Albany and get her MS in Ed Psych/Special Ed. She went for it, made it, and taught special education to HS students for years before retiring and moving to Texas.  

5)  This week's song was already an oldie by the time Rick performed it. "For You" was recorded the first time by Casa Loma Orchestra in 1933. In those days, most records were 78 rpm discs, thick and usually only able to hold 3 to 5 minutes of sound per side. Most record companies stopped producing them in the 1950s. Have you ever seen a "78?" 

Not only have I ever seen one, I've owned one!  My  mom and dad gave me a 78 when I was a child and for the life of me I cannot remember what the music was! 

6) The lyrics to "For You" were written by Al Dubin. After Al left college he supported himself as a singing waiter. That's really two jobs in one. Which would you do better at: singer or server?

You're not gonna believe this but I was also a singing waiter in college!  It was for some dinner conference with all of the Board of Directors and those of us in the music department signed up to sing during it as well as wait tables. I was given a $50 tip from  a man who was the dad of a childhood friend's husband.  The childhood friend was the 2nd oldest daughter (so about 7 years older than me) of my childhood pastor. She had married into a wealthy famiy from Florida and the man was on the board (her father in law).  But nowadays? i'd be better ar singing. Waiting/serving tables is hard work! I did it as a job one summer after college to make extra money and it's so tiring. I was a waitress at Ponderosa steakhouse out in western NY.  I've always said a person should be a waitress at least once in her/his lifetime as well as work retail or fast food. You'll appreciate these people and see them in a different light! 

7) The music was written by Joe Burke, whose last hit song was "Rambling Rose," recorded in 1948 by Perry Como. Have you ever heard of Perry Como?

oh ugh, yes. I've heard of him because my mom would play his music on her stereo on the weekends. I'm not a fan. 

8) In 1963, when Ricky's recording was on the charts, the Zip Code was introduced. How many different Zips have you lived in?

What a fun question!

Let's see: Herkimer, Mohawk, North Chili, Hamlin, Kansas City (for a short time), Albany, Clifton Park, Menands, Latham, North Colonie. So:  ten. 

9) Random question: When you were in high school, were you taller or shorter than your classmates? Or were you the average height?

I was shorter than all the boys except one.  I had one girl friend who was definitely much taller than me, and the rest?  we were all around the same height! So average I guess. I had 6 close friends I hung out with in HS.  My boyfriend when I was 17  was only about 1 inch taller than me! 

Have a happy Saturday!! I'm actually traveling today so I wrote this on Friday afternoon waiting for laundry to finish up.