A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A VERY HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY FRIENDS.

UPDATE

Mega storm "Sandy" passed through our area with great devastation. My prayers are with those who received the brunt of it. People lost power and some areas are still without power, including my parents' home. Thank God I moved my parents to my house with the fear that their house might flood again. Counting my blessings the storm didn't directly hit either of  our houses. However, there has been great devastation in the shore areas and New York City. Right now there's a shortage of gas. We are only allowed to have gas on alternate days depending on our license plate numbers.  During the storm I kept praying that I would not have to go through another clean-up. My prayers are answered for now. I say "for now"  because apparently there is another storm coming our way next week. Let's hope that it it fizzles out.......

WHITE DEER CROSSING

 

As you all know I've been very preoccupied with my parents health and well being lately and haven't been able to document my cooking. Recently, however,  I was startled to see a  young white deer in my back yard. It had ghostly appearance. I quickly grabbed my camera and was able to take some pictures of it before it vanished into the nearby woods. I hope this is a good omen for many good things to come, because I have never before seen an albino/white deer.

THANK YOU FRIENDS

JUST STOPPING IN TO THANK YOU ALL FOR CARING AND FOR YOUR GOOD WISHES. MOM IS BACK AT HOME BUT NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET. DAD IS STILL THE SAME, STRUGGLING WITH HIS PARKINSON'S DISEASE. THIS IS ALL TOO SAD TO SEE. BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL.

TAKING A BREAK

I haven't been able to write, cook or even take pictures in the past few weeks. My 82 year old mom fell down and broke her shoulder and while she was in the hospital she was diagnosed with double pneumonia. My 92 year old dad is at home with his aide and misses his wife very much. As you can see my time is divided between their home, visiting mom in the hospital, my work and my home.  Running errands and taking dad to his doctors are also part of my daily life. Sometimes there are not enough hours during the day. Today I gave my self a brief moment to go online just to get out of the monotony of my daily chores. I  wish everyone a very safe, happy and healthy summer. See you all soon..

FRESH BOUQUETS

Lavender from my garden

  Mixed flowers

HAVE A NICE WEEK-END EVERYONE

MORE FLOWERS ...

I'm so happy that this year we are able to enjoy our flowers. Last year groundhog and deer ate most of my flowers before they got a chance to blossom.  It was disheartening that we didn't get to see our efforts and labor. The critters are still here but I'm glad that they didn't bother with our garden this year (hopefully they found a better garden) but I have a feeling that my next door neighbor's cat who's been frequenting our back yard has something to do with it.

LAMB'S EAR

DAY LILY

                                                                   ECCHINACEA

ECCHINACEA

DAY LILIES, PRIM ROSE AND LAVENDER

                                                                  YELLOW  YARROW
                                                         

ASTILBE

PRIM ROSE

 WHITE YARROW AND COREOPSIS

BALLOON FLOWER

 COREOPSIS

                              (I don't know the name of this flower, but its abundant in the back yard)

SOME SILLY PHOTOS

 The beautiful pink Peony flower is almost as big as my head.  I had planted these  years ago and enjoy them every year.  They have a faint but very  sweet scent. When they are budding they tend to attract ants partly due to the nectar that forms on the outside of the bud. With the ants activities the blossoms open up. Very symbiotic relationship isn't it?   This year they were beautiful and plentiful. The flowers were so big that I had to put them  in a bowl of water instead of a vase just  to keep them from  toppeling over.



My husband's favorite trellis. It took us a while to get the rambling roses to climb to the top.   

This fern is a transplant from my dad's yard . Few years ago he gave me a few shoots to plant. First  I planted them  at a sunny location they looked miserable, following year I planted them in the shade and their growth  was stunted. Last year I planted them at the bottom of a tree where they were partially in the sun. I think  I finally succeeded in finding them the  right spot. 

I'm not very lucky growing Iris. I must have planted variety of colors over the years, most of them didn't come up. This is the only one that came up this year.

Just look at this funny cloud formation. I took this picture from the car. ( I wasn't driving)..

MY FRIEND

We celebrated my friend's 100th birthday this month. I met her years ago when she was in her late 80's and I was younger than her youngest daughter.  Despite the age difference we  bonded immediately. I became her best friend, confidant and liaison to a younger world. She and I talked about fashion, hair,  make-up and about serious matters. She told me about her children, her husband and her life. Sometimes we cried together but mostly I made her laugh. I had a feeling that some of the stories she shared with me was not shared with anyone else.  After my bout with cancer I asked her if she had had a mammogram done. She told me she was too old for that. After one week of hounding her to see a doctor, she finally relented and went to get a  mammography. Her results were not good but it  was not too late. She was lucky enough to get diagnosed early. During her ordeal to uplift her spirits I told her that she and I'll dance at her 100th birthday to which she shrugged and said she didn't think so. I dared her and we made a pact that we would dance even if she was in a wheel chair. Since then she has travelled around the world and was on many cruises, shopped, drove her car until her arthritis stopped her. We keep in touch with each other over the phone most of the time. Her major complaint these days is her loss of hearing and she abhors hearing aids. Today she is still sharp as a tack and sweet as an apple pie.  At her birthday party we were seated with her physicians and we all agreed that  she was a very young 100 and has many more years in her. Oh, by the way I'm happy to report that  my dear friend  wasn't in a wheel chair at her birthday party and she and I  danced  amid all her children, grand children and great grandchildren. 

A VERY HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL MOTHERS,  GRANDMOTHERS, MOTHER-IN-LAWS, MOTHERS' TO BE AND MOTHERS' AT HEART.

SPRING FLOWERS FROM MY GARDEN

 

This is the Wisteria I found in the back of my garden few years ago and nurtured it to become this beautiful. See how it looked then in my posting on  WISTERIA 

This is my pink Azalea bush  growing in a pot.

My eye catching scarlet red Azalea bush

The Lilly of the valley. They're all over the garden. I gathered them and made this bouquet. Their scent is delicious.

This Columbine plant disappeared from my garden for couple of years and surprisingly came back this year. Now I have four separate purple plants growing .

My ever faithful Bleeding Heart. It never fails, every year in the middle of March it starts coming up and blossoms by mid April.

FLAMBELICIOUS

I  bought bananas when I was out shopping and that evening  my husband came home with some also.  Well suffice to say that we had lots of bananas.  After having them for breakfast in cereals, eating them after dinner we still had a lot left.  Last night's desert was (you guessed it)  bananas. We enjoyed so much that  I made another batch and brought it over to my next door neighbor who's son is about to be deployed to Afghanistan. It was passed from hand to hand and was gone in a minute.  Here's the "recipe":

 1 tablespoon butter 

 3 tablespoons of brown sugar

 2-3 bananas diagonally sliced (only for decorative purposes) 

 2 tablespoon light rum (or more to your taste)

 5-6 strawberries hulled and sliced.

Melt butter in a medium pan. Add brown sugar and bananas stir to coat. Pour 1 tablespoon of rum over the bananas .Gently stir in the strawberries. Add remaining rum. Remove pan away from the heat source and carefully ignite the  rum with a long match or grill lighter.  After the flames are gone place it in a platter.  Enjoy... 

 

HAPPY HOT DOG

GOOD MORNING!! ... Who wouldn't want to wake up to a smiling face? Yesterday I made couple of these happy faced breakfast treats for us and one for my neighbor's child who is a finicky eater.I  brought it over to their house before she woke up and gave it to her mother. Her mother was thrilled at the idea . Later she told me that her daughter loved it and ate it all. Sometimes simple things make all the difference. One hot dog cut in half and shaped like a heart with an egg in the middle. After all who can refuse this guy???? 

 

Heres Looking At You

All day yesterday my husband and I did chores, from cleaning the house to grocery shopping to  washing the car and weeding in the the back yard. After such a busy day we rewarded ourselves to cold wine and appetizers. While I was preparing some I felt like being funny so after stuffing the tomatoes, with cream cheese mixture that I prepared ( mixed the cheese with garlic salt, minced cucumber, red pepper etc..) I perched them on sliced brie cheese and gave them olive paste eyes and parsley leaf hair and called them the "orchestra tomatoes"... Don't ask me why...

FULL MOON

I took this picture  some time last month and  the image was not so clear.  I thought I'd keep it in my files. Coincidentally last week I saw that a fellow blogger had a similar picture on her blog.  While the quality of her photo is better than mine I mentioned to her that I would post mine to show the similarity.  The first picture is from my  downstairs window at 6:00 AM and as you can see it's still dark outside. I realized that my angle from where I was  standing was not very conducive to capture the full effect of the moon and  since I couldn't run outside in my pajamas I figured I'd run upstairs and get a better shot from there. Finally in front of another window I started to shoot and again I realized that I had forgotten to change the camera setting and had no time to remove the window screen. Once again the old cliche "haste makes waste.." seems apt. 

EASTER

WISHING YOU A BLESSED EASTER  AND A VERY HAPPY SPRING TIME....

PAN CAKES WITH STRAWBERRY SYRUP

This Sunday morning I woke up with a bad headache. Lingering in bed I said to myself: "self ! you have two choices either get up and brave the day or pull the covers over your head and go back to sleep". I chose to get up only because I don't like being sick. I put on my comfort attire the long pink ,warm puffy robe and big pink puffy slippers and went downstairs.  Put the coffee on and set the table. What should I make for breakfast???. I saw the fresh large delicious strawberries that I've purchased a day before  on the counter. I decided to make pancakes with strawberry syrup. My child hood comfort food. (When we were kids and didn't feel well my mother also gave us toast smeared with strawberry jelly and tea with milk).  For this recipe I used 7-8 large strawberries enough for my hubby and I. The recipe is very simple, wash,  hull and cut strawberries ( I used 7-8 large ones). Place them in a small pot  add 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup of water and two tablespoons of rum (alcohol evaporates as it boils but stabilizes the color) bring to a bubbling boil, turn heat down and simmer for 10-15 minutes, mash with with the back of a spoon. By the end of our breakfast I was glad that I chose to get up and did what I did and felt much better for it.

WHAT HAPPENED TO SPRING....???

I took these pictures of my Magnolia tree last Friday. They were in full bloom with all their glory.  Every single bud was open. They were enjoying  the beautiful warm sunny day. Having a very cold weather over the week-end their delicate flowers were shriveled and turned into saggy brown dish rags...

I'm glad that I  snipped my Hyacinths and one little Daffodil from my garden before the cold weather got to them.  Now, they are happily residing on my coffee table and filling the room with their sweet aroma.