The Easter Bunny still comes to see me...

The Easter Bunny came to see all of us!  Larry and I got baskets of candy and goodies and I got a giant Easter Minnie Mouse and Mickey and Minnie POPs!

Banjo and Tabbie Hoffman got a new water fountain to share (Tabbie drinks out of Banjo's water bowl anyway AND eats his food...oy), Banjo got some new chew bones and Tabbie got some silver vine sticks.  They both got new toys, too.  Yay for the Easter Bunny!!

Easter weekend

Easter is here again!  We had the best time this morning with our little egg hunt, courtesy of Pawsome Southern Rescue, a wonderful animal rescue here in town.  They would hide 2 dozen plastic, candy-filled eggs in your yard for a $20 donation.  We were so excited when we woke up and saw all the eggs in our front yard this morning!

Tabbie Hoffman wasn't interested in no egg hunt.  He just wanted to roll around on the porch.

Yesterday, we worked in the yard nearly all day long and I got my first sunburn of the year.  I got SO much done, though!  I planted flowers out by the mailbox.  Snapdragons, African and English daisies, lavender, tickweed and candytuft.  I'm really happy with the way it turned out!

I planted my sunflower seeds, too, and doused 'em good with Texas Pete.  That's my "secret" to beautiful, giant sunflowers.  That and Tabbie Hoffman pee.  Works every summer!  This year, we're going to have mammoth sunflowers, "incredible" sunflowers that grow to 20 feet (!) and teddy bear sunflowers.  All mixed up together by the fence.  I'm so excited to see them!!

I also planted calendula, marigolds, larkspur and Shasta daisies in beds in the backyard.  

I've got tomatoes and peppers and wildflowers yet to plant.  Next weekend.  Today is a rest day.  Hope everybody has a wonderful Easter Sunday and never lose sight of the true meaning of Easter.  What joy, what a blessing we have with the TRUTH that Jesus is ALIVE and was resurrected from the dead.  We have a life worth living because HE LIVES!!

Snoopy

About two weeks ago, I saw some adorable little doxie doggy pillows that were made from vintage sheets and pillowcases online and I had to have one.  I got the one that looked the most like springtime and he arrived Monday.

Larry took one look at him and said, "Snoopy".  His mama had a couple of dachshunds named Snoopy.  So Snoopy he is.

Don't y'all just love how we name all of our "babies"??

Busy days!

We have been busy little bees lately!  After months of prayer, we finally sold the condo last month.  It was a bittersweet day for me, since the condostead, as I affectionately called her when I lived there, was my first home.  It was where I brought Tabbie Hoffman home as a one-pound orange fluff, where he learned about Mama's love and freedom and boundaries and where he taught me the same things.  It was where Larry and I first lived as a married couple.  It was where we brought Banjo home, too, where he turned from a scared, skinny little Banjo to a rambunctious bundle of pure joy and love.

So yeah, I was a little sad the day we signed the papers and let her go.  Lots of wonderful memories between those tiny walls!  But it was the right thing to do.  For us, for our little family and for the condo, too.  The guy who bought her is an investor and he's going to remodel her and "flip" her.  I pray that the person who buys her will find love, comfort and "home" there like we all did.

The first thing we did was GET OUT OF DEBT!  We paid off everything except our mortgage and whew!  That feels awesome.  Then we put a chunk into our savings account.

And then we went on a few shopping sprees!  We got a few things we'd been wanting for a while.  A new lens for my camera, a welder, some new shutters for the house...  Our biggest investment so far has been Larry's workshop.  We bought a steel building from H&H and Larry's been working so hard to get it just like he wants it.

Here are a few before and so far pictures.  This was the day after they delivered it.  Larry has added steps and a lattice skirt around the bottom now.

This weekend, he put up insulation and walls.  We had an electrician come out and wire it up and put in lights and electrical outlets.  It's really looking good!

He's going to build a work bench and put in cabinets and shelves.  Stay tuned for a big ALL DONE reveal!  We got an air conditioner for it and will get a little heater in the fall.  I'm so excited for Larry to have his own place to work!  He's so talented and makes such beautiful things for our home and for others that he deserves a nice place to plan and dream and work.

We got a couple of super comfy matching recliners, too. We have a hard time staying out of them!

Banjo has claimed his spot beside me while we watch TV.  

We welcomed a new family member, too!  Rosie!  She's an iRobot Roomba and we LOVE her.  She does such a great job for us.  She leaves "vacuum marks" on the carpet, too, and I LOVE that.  I love to see vacuum marks on the carpet.  Always have.  Call me crazy.  It makes me think the floor's cleaner.  Ha!  We are going to take up the living room carpet and put down some hardwood laminate and just have carpet in the bedrooms.  Rosie does so well going from carpet to tile and onto throw rugs and then back to carpet that I look forward to her being a part of our family for a long, long time.  She helps Mama a LOT!!  She's so much fun, too.  We've had lots of laughs.  I downloaded the iRobot app on my phone and I get updates when she's running.  If she gets stuck, I get a message.  She's only gotten badly stuck once, underneath the entertainment center.  The gap there is EXACTLY the same as her height so she got really stuck.  I had to move the entertainment center off her and she has some battle scars to show for it.  Little scratches on her top.  Oh well, if you don't get hurt, you ain't working!  And she works hard.  We love her.

The boys are still getting used to her, though.

Souper Bowl Sunday!

I made a Mexican posole (pozole?) today for our Sunday dinner.  Larry found the recipe in the paper last weekend and asked me if I'd make him some for the Super Bowl.

Posole/pozole means "hominy" and there's lots of hominy in it.  Three cups!  Now being the southern girl that I am, I know hominy grits are made from hominy but I don't have any recollection of eating hominy before.  It's nasty.  Bland.  I think you'd remember if you'd had it.

Anyway, I made it and it was too hot for me to eat.  It was PERFECT for Larry. He loves hot spicy stuff.  That's why he married me.  Ha!  He gave it two thumbs up and ate two bowls before his forehead busted out in sweat and his tongue caught on fire.

Here's the recipe if y'all want to try it.  Along with some pictures of a few steps in the process.  It's time consuming because nearly everything has to be minced or chopped.  It's here that your food processor will come in handy!

I think next time we have it, I'll use pinto beans instead of hominy and call it Pinto Combustio soup or something like that.

Ingredients

• 3 cups dried hominy (or canned hominy, drained and rinsed)
• 3 lb pork shoulder, trimmed and cut into 1½-inch cubes
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• 3 Tbsp canola oil
• 2 large yellow onions, minced
• 1 fennel bulb diced
• 1 serrano chile, minced
• 6 garlic cloves, halved
• 1 cup freshly ground mild red chile powder (or a mix of mild and hot)
• 3 Tbsp dried mint
• 3 Tbsp Mexican oregano
• 2 Tbsp ground cumin
• 2 cups halved fresh tomatillos
• 1 cup crushed tomatoes
• 3 Tbsp minced chipotles chiles canned in adobo
• 4 quarts chicken stock (preferably homemade)
• Minced red onion, cilantro leaves, diced avocado and quartered limes, for garnish

Directions

1. Place hominy in a large container; cover with cold water. Refrigerate 24 hours. Drain; reserve.
2. Season pork with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large (8-quart-plus) pot over medium heat until smoking and hot. Working in batches to avoid overcrowding pan, brown pork 5-7 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Transfer pork to a large plate. Add onions to pot; saute 3-5 minutes or until golden. Add fennel and serrano; saute 3 minutes. Stir in garlic; saute 3 minutes. Stir in chile powder, mint, oregano and cumin; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in tomatillos, tomatoes, chipotles and pork. Add stock; bring to a simmer. Stir in hominy; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to maintain a very gentle simmer. Cook 2½ hours, stirring every 30 minutes or until pork is almost tender and hominy almost perfectly chewy (kernels will have burst open for the most part by this time).
3. Season and continue to cook 15-30 minutes or until pork is fork-tender. Add more stock or water, if needed (posole should be looser than stew, but sturdier than brothy soup). Serve in bowls accompanied by garnishes.

It's the day after Christmas...

Christmas has come and gone in a flash.  It seems to do that more and more as we get older, doesn't it?

We had a wonderful Christmas.  We spent Christmas Eve afternoon with Mama and Daddy and enjoyed some yummy barbecue and teriyaki wings, pasta salad, Christmas cookies, Mama's faithful Martha Washington candy (that she has made every Christmas of my memory) and the oven-roasted pecans that she never fails to make for me.  I made rum balls for the first time ever this year and they were such a hit, I had to make two batches to take to work!  They were really, really good.

I'm finding that the older I get, the more nostalgic I get.  I long for Christmases of years past when life was simple, times were hard but love was abundant.  Things just aren't the same anymore.  We're too busy, life is too fast and our loved ones are slipping away from us due to age, distance or hardheadedness.  It's sad, really.

I took an extra day off today but Larry went back to work.  I had plans to start to pack away Christmas but it's afternoon now and I still haven't started.  I'm probably not going to.  It'll keep.  And in the meantime, I can enjoy our beautiful tree and eat a couple more Christmas cookies.

As far as gifts went, we pretty much racked up.  Mama and Daddy had our stockings stuffed and we each got gift cards that will be very happily used!  Larry and I had cheated so bad this month and had already opened up so much of our gifts to each other but we did save a few for Christmas.  Eve.  We so bad.

One of the big gifts we gave each other was hiring somebody to repair our hot tub!  It's been down a long time and when we went to Helen in September and stayed in that cabin with a hot tub, we realized how much we missed ours.  Larry found a guy who sold and serviced Leisure Bay spas exactly like ours for over ten years and we had him come from Alabama to fix ours.  All that was wrong was the motor had died.  That's it.  No lightning strike, no power issue.  Just a worn out motor.  $447 later and it was right as rain.  And we have really, really loved having it back!  

Here are some pics from our Christmas at home.

Larry found a 1950's Pyrex warming plate for me.  I didn't even know they existed!  And he finally got me the 1950's yellow Pyrex Hostess bowl he's been eying for a year or so.  I kept telling him it was too much, that they wanted waaaaay too much for that bowl.  He got it anyway.

We're still playing Pokémon (when they make it interesting!) and he got me a Pikachu shirt and bank.  

And a Robins AFB shirt in red that I can wear on Support The Troops Fridays! 

We're replacing all of our cookware so we added these two pieces of All-Clad!  I love to cook and I get really excited about new cookware!  Ha!

This crazy amazing bird.  We saw him at an antique store just before Christmas and I just loved him.  But they wanted $125 for him and that was just insane.  Larry went back later and made a deal and got him for me.  His name is Elton.  Look at that hat!  You can't see them but he's got some kickin' boots on, too. 

Larry got some Duluth Trading Company clothes and some Fox River Army boot socks, along with a new Bluetooth speaker, a cell phone mounting kit for his truck, some military patches to add to his office wall, some cologne and some beard balm.

I got him this, too.  A FrostGuard to cover the windshield of his truck on cold nights.  I keep my car in the garage but he has to scrape his windshield.  Not no more!

Santa came to see our boys, too!  Banjo's tree stump full of squeaky squirrels and Tabbie Hoffman's hamster that records what you say (or purr) and then repeats it back.  And stockings full of toys and treats (and toothpaste!).

Tabbie with his hamster.  I love how it's looking up at him!

 Larry feeding Banjo some treats.  The squirrels forgotten.  

Santa brought a fruit, nut and berry bell for the backyard birdies, too.

This was me Christmas afternoon, with my new fuzzy socks and Christmas blanket Mama gave me.  Calm, quiet, peaceful afternoon.

Christmas Outside!

It's really looking like Christmas at our house!  I mean, so much that at night, it's like daylight out there.  Noon.  I'm sorry, neighbors.  If our lights are keeping y'all up, holla!

I just love this little stable that Larry made for our nativity.  Baby Jesus is toasty warm in his cashmere baby blanket that I wrapped Him in.  :)

Our Tabbie Hoffman and Banjo garden flags.  <3

We picked up a couple of pillows for the porch rockers, too.

I'm really, really diggin' this one.  For more reasons than one.  Hee hee.

And while folks all around us got snow yesterday, we didn't get a flake.  And that's fine and dandy with me.