Hamhocks and Guitar Strings

"I'm off to get my life sustaining supplies - cornmeal and gunpowder, hamhocks and guitar strings." - Yukon Cornelius from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Photo courtesy of msmindy.com

You know, it sure seems like a lot of kids and people I know play some kind of instrument, yet, why do there seem to be so few places to buy lovepedal effects pedals, rosin, strings, sheet music, etc.??  There is a very small place near me that I can buy a few things, or things can be ordered, but it's a good half an hour drive from me to the first REAL music store! There are hundreds and hundreds of kids in the music program in our school district alone - why aren't there more music stores?  Are there a lot of music stores by you??  These scarce music store owners must be secret millionaires, lol!  What is up with that??  I guess a lot of people must order things online these days??

Rant over.

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Oh, So Good to be Back in the 'Dacks!

Look!  Our little place, still just as we left it last fall, hooray!!

Coffee, Mimosas and the Chronicle on a crisp Adirondack morning.  Nothin' better.

The fish were biting!  

And here is *my* fishing gear!  Yes, this was my Mother's Day present - a new fishing rod of my own, some lures and a fishing license!  I only caught one fish, but the hours spent sitting on the pier with my feet dangling in the water, gazing at the lake were wonderfully relaxing.  

Our daughter caught more fish than I did, and that was even with spending half her time swimming and rescuing our snagged lures, lol.

Priceless.  Thank you, Lord!

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My Mother's Day, One Day Early

Kentucky Fried Chicken "bucket" (with free chocolate chip cake) = about $20.00

Fun day with my family eating KFC, walking along the beach of the Hudson River in Kingston, NY and finding 16 geocaches = priceless.  :-D

That's the Kingston Rhinecliff bridge in the distance.

I also got my Mother's Day present, which was a total surprise to me, but very awesome and thoughtful!  It's late and I don't have any pictures yet, but it's not discount perfumes, or jewelry or anything like that.  I'll give you a hint - it's something I can use a lot up at the cabin...  I'll take pictures and show you soon what I got.

What did you do for Mother's Day?  What nice presents did *you* get?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all my Mommy Bloggin' and Blog Readin' Peeps!

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Seedling World!

That's what our sunroom is like this time of year!  :-)

We've been taking them outside little by little to "harden them off".  The first year of our garden we didn't even know we were supposed to harden them off and then when we planted our seedlings in the garden they all slumped over and looked on the verge of death for about two weeks before they started to revive and grow again.  Last year we tried hardening them off but clearly we didn't do it right because the same thing happened.  So we're trying again to succeed at starting seedlings inside and then successfully transplant them to our garden without the "slumping death's door" two week period.

Do you harden off your garden plants?  How do *you* do it??

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More Thoughts Too Short for a Whole Blog Post

One of the waterfalls at Kent Falls State Park in Ct.

I think that employee cafeterias at nuclear plants should serve "Tuna Meltdowns" instead of "Tuna Melts".

Have you ever wondered, if you dug a hole right where you are and kept going until you reached the other side of the world, where you would end up?  Well check this out and you can see:  http://www.antipodemap.com/  Just drag the map until the red pin is on your location.  I'd end up coming out off the coast of Australia.

My computer geek Husband can write computer programs to save thousands of people in the event of an emergency, but he needs my help to use the Hallmark Card creator program.

I'm wearing my fitbit for the first time today and so far I have supposedly taken 15,909 steps.  I think it's probably right.  (I was at the gym this morning and did the elliptical and treadmill, then later I went grocery shopping.)  Supposedly that translates to about 7.5 miles.  I wore it to bed last night and tracked my sleep - according to the fitbit I got 5 hours and 38 minutes of sleep.  I think it's about right.  I need more sleep!!  :-P

At first I thought Pinterest was stupid, but now I like it.

I don't know what is going on lately with the kitties - maybe some sort of territorial dispute or bid for "top cat" - but we've had quite a few cat fights lately.  You know when they decide to have them?  In the middle of the night.  Guess where?  In the middle of our bed.  Niiiiiiiiiiiice.  I'm ready to set up some pls lasers as a boundary around the bed - one false move will trigger ceiling mounted water guns!  Either you behave yourselves on the bed, or <said in Soup Nazi voice> no bed for you!

Do you have cats (or dogs) that get into fights at inconvenient times or places??

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Do You Know What a Muffler Man Is?

This handsome fella was photographed by the Husband in Elmsford, NY.

From Wikipedia:

"Muffler Men (or Muffler Man) is a term used to describe large molded fiberglass sculptures that are placed as advertising icons, roadside attractions or for decorative purposes, predominantly in the United States.  Standing approximately 20 feet tall, the first figure was a Paul Bunyan character designed to hold his axe.  Derivatives of that figure were widely used to hold full-sized car mufflers, tires, or other items promoting various roadside businesses."

Did you know what a Muffler Man is?  Have you ever seen one?  It's sort of a little hobby of ours - spotting them.  You never know where you might see one!

This is probably my favorite one.  It was in all places, Chincoteague, VA - sort of out in the middle of nowhere, as you can see.  I would love to know the story behind this guy - I wonder what he was advertising??

Have you ever seen any cool Muffler Men?

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I Cooked Something I Saw on Another Blog - Banana Bread

Whoops.  These were a little past their prime...  I remembered a couple of years ago I had rotten bananas and I asked my blog readers for a good recipe for banana bread ('cause that's what ya do with rotten bananas).  I got some great suggestions, and I tried one of the recipes (which came out great, btw).  This time I thought I'd hunt down that old blog post and try one of the other recipes suggested.  I decided to try my good bloggy buddy Rebecca's recipe, which you can find here --->  Basic Banana Bread.  (She has a lot of other GREAT recipes on that Wow Chow Cooking btw, so be sure to browse around.)

Something I liked about her recipe was that the ingredients were all things I had on hand.  (I hate when you have to buy uncommon ingredients for a recipe, then you're left with half a jar of whatsit that cost $6.00 that's going to sit in your pantry and gather dust.)  Anyway, the recipe was easy peasy and it turned out beautifully.  Sorry for this rather horrible picture, but lately it seems the Husband almost always seems to have the camera (due to the have-to-find-one-geocache-every-day mission we're on). I resorted to using the webcam, which is probably better suited for Skype-ing, ActConferencing.com audio conferencing and taking Facebook profile pictures, but where there's a will there's a way!  It's kind of been putting a crimp in my blogging not having the camera always around to take pics of stuff that happens.  Anyhoo...

(No, it's not burnt on the side, it's just the crapp-o webcam.  But it's proof that I did make it, if nothing else, lol!  Not that I would ever lie to you.  Speaking of that, it's amazing some of the things I've heard of that bloggers have made up, but I digress...)

I did add the half a cup of walnuts that was suggested as an option in her recipe.  I REALLY like nuts in banana bread, so they were definitely going in.  What I loved about this recipe is the bread actually has a very light and almost delicate texture - not heavy and rubbery-moist like some banana breads.  It also has a nice firm "crust" and the slices hold together really nicely when cut - not crumbly.  This would be a good recipe for company because it presents so beautifully.  Oh, and it's DELICIOUS! I would definitely make this again.  Two thumbs up!! :-D

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