07.31.16 Last Weekend of the Month

I cannot believe this is the last day of July!!  It feels like the 4th of July was just yesterday.  I had a wonderful weekend.  Friday night John and I just went to a quick dinner at Dunwelz.  Then we came home and chilled out.  we read and then we just watched TV.  Yesterday I had a pedicure.  It was such a wonderful pedicure!  I loved my "me" time!  Then John and I had a quick lunch and took a drive.  We ended up going to Barnes and Noble.  My Nook Color's charging cable doesn't work anymore.  They told me they thought Barnes and Noble was giving cables away for free because they were defective.  They placed an order for one for me.  I got an email today saying they can't fill my order!!  REALLY Barnes and Noble are you kidding me!  I had just ordered 3 books from the class-action suit a few weeks ago.  I was 7/8ths of the way through the book when the charger broke!  I have been reading these books on my phone and it just isn't the same!  I'm going to look on amazon to see if I can buy a charger cable. 

Last night John, Jenny and I went to Upstream for dinner.  This was a belated birthday celebration! 

It is restaurant week.  Well restaurant week is over tonight.  So they had a menu for restaurant week that was to die for!!  I opted for the lobster dinner!

This lobster was soooooo good!!  Before the lobster came I had a Tega Cay Bib Lettuce Salad.  There were tangerines and goat cheese on bib lettuce.  It was fabulous!!  The dinner ended with a wonderful dessert.  I had the blueberry pear crumble with almond gelato.  It was all out of this world!!

Saturday during the day I saw some of the gladiolus were blooming in the front garden.  I also had some limelight hydrangea still blooming.  I thought they would look wonderful together in my grandmother's vase.  I love using the vase my grandmother gave me before she died.  I put flowers in it throughout the summer because every week I used to take my grandmother flowers and she  would put them in this vase.  Lovely memories!

Today I slept in and then cooked a big breakfast for John and I.  I went grocery shopping and decided that I needed to make eggplant parmesan!  So I did!!  It was wonderful!  I hadn't made this in such a long time.  I also made beer bread to go with it.  What a wonderful dinner!

So this was really a wonderful weekend!  It was still so hot here, but atleast I found things to do inside to stay cool!!  I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend too!!

Enjoy your week :)!!

My Birthday Yesterday and the Garden

Yesterday was my 57th birthday!  I received some many well wishes from family and friends for which I am truly blessed!  My daughter, Jenny and the grandboys, my Mom, Dad and sister, Sue called me too!  I also got a call from my friend, Linda and I called to thank my sweet, dear friend, Angie for the lovely bouquet of flowers she sent me!!!  Here they are:

These flowers are just gorgeous!!  She is so thoughtful she found  place in Charlotte that has a Charlotte pitcher that is designed from an 18th century pitcher.  Just gorgeous!!

These roses are just so awesome, the color is just gorgeous!!

I decided to have a really low-key birthday.  Jenny was taking the boys to a birthday party and she had the Gwen Stefani concert at night so they couldn't come over.  So John and I just slept in, he made me breakfast in bed!!  My favorite French toast with bacon, orange juice and hot tea.  Perfect.  Then we watched some HGTV, I read my book, I looked at some magazines and just plain did nothing!!  It was perfect!!

I did take a walk around the garden.  Here are some photos from that:

I was standing at our mailbox and looked up, this is the view down our street.  The clouds were so beautiful!!

Our white crape myrtle is in full bloom by our garage now.  Just gorgeous!

We had a little shower yesterday afternoon.  Well it actually rained pretty hard.  I love when flowers have little raindrops on them!

I have some lamb's ears in my garden and I just love the texture of the leaves.

My roses are blooming again.  Just gorgeous and the aroma is even better :)!

My everbearing strawberries are blooming again.

I almost forgot, on Friday after work my co-workers took me out for a drink or two!  These beauties were so good.  We went to Hickory Tavern and Debbi and I had Strawberry Watermelon Mojitos!!!  Carl and Adam had Dirty Martini's.  We had a whole lot of fun!!  They are great to work with!!

 

 

The bumblebees have been busy in the garden.  They really love the hosta flowers.  They are all blooming now. 

This bumblebee was busy in on the salvia in the front garden.

The swallowtails love, love, love the butterfly bush.

I had a wonderful birthday present from Mother Nature yesterday!!  Our little bluebird babies decided they needed to fly yesterday!  There are 7 of them, yes you read right 7 of them!!!  They were so cute flitting around the backyard and clinging onto the pine trees.  They also decided my fountain by the back door needed to be tried out.  They drank and took baths one after the other.  Mama and Daddy Bluebird hovered near by but they let their babies try their wings out!!  I couldn't get any pictures of them flying around the yard but one landed on the bluebird box.

I had to take this photo from pretty far away but you can see the little baby on the top of the box.

We also had alot of hummingbird visits!  They were super busy at the hummingbird feeder yesterday, I guess because it was 102 degrees here!!  One little hummer comes and I guess she gets tired so she sits on top fo the shepherd's crook.  I was able to snap her photo!!

Isn't she just the cutest little thing!!  I love them.

Well that is about all I have for today!  It is was a wonderful weekend and I am truly blessed and loved.  I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends!!  I couldn't have asked for a better birthday and weekend!!

Fresh Baked Beer Bread and Peach Pie!!

Today I had a really lazy day until I decided I was going to bake!  I made beer bread for dinner-really easy!!  Here's the recipe:

3 cups self rising flour
3 tablespoons of sugar
1 can or bottle of beer

Mix together and put in a greased bread pan to rise for 15 mins.  Then preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Bake bread after the 15 minute rising for 1 hour.  3/4's of the way through brush top of bread with butter and after you take the bread out of the oven also.  Let cool and slice.  Wonderful toasted the next day for breakfast!!

Then my grandsons brought me some peaches when they went to SC.  They were a little hard then but just right for pie now!  I added some peaches I bought at the farm stand yesterday and made a fresh peach pie for dessert tonight.  It wouldn't be right if I didn't invite the little boys over for some, so they are on their way! 

Yesterday when we were at the farm stand we got corn and yellow squash.  I really love butter and sugar corn or yellow corn but all they had was white corn.  It was good and very tender, but not butter and sugar!  I also love yellow squash-that was wonderful!  I cooked one of my Dad's grass-fed sirloin steaks and made mashed potatoes too!  What a wonderful and tasty dinner and dessert!!

As I was walking around my garden today, I looked at the moon vine.  It is loaded with more buds!!  I also noticed the leaves are heart-shaped.  Then I do remember my Nana told me about the heart shaped leaves.  She told me that when she shared her knowledge of the moon vine and would call me to come watch it open with her, it was because she was opening her heart up and sharing this with me!!  I really miss her!!

Well that is about it for me today!  I'm going to sit and read my Elin Hilderbrand book while I wait for Jenny and the grandboys to arrive for fresh peach pie and ice cream!!  Hope everyone had a great weekend!!

Roses and Raindrops!

Last night after dinner John and I were sitting on the front porch watching the rain.  I happened to look over and see that my favorite rose of all times was blooming!!  I jumped up out of my chair, nearly scared John half to death and ran into the house for my iphone.  I went out in amongst the raindrops and shot some photos of my beautiful friend!  Here are some of the photos I'd like to share with you:

This photo is my favorite but they were all good ones!!

This was our view across the street from our front porch.

     
Nature is truly amazing and this is such a wonderful and beautiful world we live in!!

Time with the Little Boys and My Walk Around the Garden

Tonight Jenny and the grandboys came over for dinner and then when it started to get dark the boys wanted to do some left over sparklers.  They had a really good time and it was fun!

Owen and Jack with their sparklers.

Owen mastering his sparkler.

Jack enjoying his sparkler.

I love sparklers in the dark!

Jenny and I made fresh pesto from all the basil I have grown.  We did the sparklers afterwards.  After the boys and Jenny left I walked around my garden.  The light was just right.  Here is what I shot:

My blue hydrangea looks so beautiful!

My hydrangea fades out to this beautiful color.

My butterfly bush is blooming up a storm.

My coleus in the front urn.

Front porch flower box with roses blooming below.

My Limelight Hydrangea in the front garden.

Limelight Hydrangea

My Lamb's Ears are so pretty.  I love the soft grays!

Moon Vine buds starting to form.

A closeup of the Moon Vine bud.

Purple Petunias in the French flower hanger.

Rose of Sharon blossom starting to unfurl.

The moon vine that is growing in a pot of my back steps has started to form buds.  My Nana used to grow this vine.  This is the only flower you can see unfurl and open up with the naked eye.  My Nana used to call my house and tell me to run down to her house.  When I got there the plant would be shaking slightly and then little by little you would watch the flower unfurl and open up.  It was so beautiful!!  It was a memory I was share with my grandboys when the buds start to open!

I hope you have enjoyed the walk around my garden.  I especially enjoyed it tonight and to watch the happiness on my grandboys faces while they played with the sparklers!!  These are definitely memories I'm going to treasure for the rest of my life!!