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Archive for Around the House

What’s your latest TV series obsession?

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Travel Man is on an extended assignment right now and will be away from home for a total of 22 days. Ugh! I’m fairly used to his travel schedule now, and simply focus on our together time. This undoubtedly leaves me a lot of time to find things to do on my own. Another thing I’ve been getting used to.

So, with the house mostly to myself for a few weeks, I spend my evening time watching more chick flicks than usual, channel surfing, and finding things that I like to watch that Travel Man and I may or may not watch together. Recently, I had read a few reviews of The Good Wife, with Julianna Margulies, and Christine Baranski. It had been on my back burner of shows to check out on our Roku, via Amazon Prime viewing. When I checked on this series a few weeks ago the seasons were not yet being offered for free, and I wasn’t going to pay to watch the episodes.

This past weekend, with Travel Man gone, I decided to check out the Good Wife again, and lo and behold Season 1 is now free if you are an Amazon Prime subscriber. Yay! So I settled in to watch the first episode of Season 1, and I’m hooked. Three nights later I have watch 14 episodes, not all in one sitting people! My son tells me I’m obsessed, or is it an addiction?

It’s been awhile since I got totally hooked on a TV series that I really enjoyed. This series is about the workings of a law firm and each episode revolves around one or two specific cases. There is also a great mini story in the background. I’m not going to be story spoiler here, but if you like a good lawyer series, this is a good one to settle in for.

TV viewing has become so different over the past few years. I would much prefer to find a series to watch on Netflix or Amazon Prime over any of the regular network shows. It’s definitely much more enjoyable to have the choices to be selective in your viewing, and not be limited to only two or three local network stations. Does anyone remember those days?

The guys in the house are hooked on The Walking Dead right now. Those zombies are just a little too gory for me. My Travel Man is watching the 3rd season on his Nexus tablet while he is on the road right now. He downloads the episodes before he travels, and then watches them while he flying or after work. He would rather have the control over what he’s watching too. It’s a whole new TV viewing world.

What’s your latest TV viewing obsession/addiction? I’d love to hear any recommendations too!

Lemon Poppy-Seed Cookies

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Since we have a plethora of lemons around here, from our lemon/lime tree, I have been searching for new cookie recipes to try out on the cookie lovers at my house. Last week I tried out this easy recipe for lemon poppy-seed cookies, from the Martha Stewart website. I did add an additional cup of flour from the original recipe, as the dough was extremely sticky. This was a trial run for this recipe, and they turned out ever so delicious. I will definitely be adding these to my cookie recipe arsenal.

Ingredients:

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 ½ teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest (2 to 3 lemons)
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 ½cups sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon poppy seeds, plus more for sprinkling

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bring lemon juice to a simmer in a small saucepan medium heat; cook until reduced by half. Add 1 stick butter; stir until melted.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. Cream remaining stick butter and 1 cup sugar. Mix in egg and lemon butter. Mix until pale, about 3 minutes.

4. Mix in vanilla and 2 teaspoons zest. Mix in flour mixture and poppy seeds.

5. In a small bowl, stir together remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1½ teaspoons zest.

6. Roll spoonfuls of dough into 1½-inch balls or use your favorite cookie scoop; roll them in sugar mixture. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets.

7. Press each with the flat end of a glass dipped in sugar mixture until ¼ inch thick. Sprinkle with extra poppy seeds.(This is optional)

8. Bake until just browned around bottom edges, 10 to 11 minutes. Transfer to wire racks; let cool completely. Makes about 30 cookies. Store in an airtight container up to 1 week.

This cookie is like a little, lemon shortbread. It has definitely gotten better with age, and oddly enough we still have a few left in the cookie container. Amazing! This is a great recipe to make to send to long distance loved ones, or for your favorite Travel Guy to take with him on his next trip. Come on over and pick some lemons from our tree and try out the recipe. Next on my lemon cookie list will be good ‘ol Lemon Squares. Happy baking everyone!

5 comments Posted in Around the House, Baking, Recipes

Our House got a “Reboot”

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Renee Spindle

This past weekend Travel Man and I decided it would be a good time to knock some items off of our “Things to get done Around the House” list. I don’t really call this list our “Honey-Do” list, because a lot of times we work on the list together. Especially if it is something I don’t really know how to do, or want to learn to do.

On this particular Saturday, Travel Man was putting up a ceiling medallion in our bedroom around the ceiling fan. This required the power to the electric circuit in our bedroom to be turned off. The circuits in our house are just a bit quirky, and on the electrical panel some of our circuits were labeled and some were not. This issue of course has now been corrected.

We formed a little family assembly line so that when the power to our bedroom was off, I yelled to our daughter whether or not the power was cut, and she relayed the message to Travel Man outside. A little back note here; our ceiling fan can run with or without the light on. I did not have the light turned on when we started this relay process. Travel Man had gone through almost all of the circuits or more before we, or should I say, I realized that it would be easier if I had the light turned on to tell when the power was cut. We went through the entire electrical panel, and back to the very first circuit before the power was cut. Ooopsy doodle, I should have turned the light on much, much sooner. It would have saved my guy the trouble of flipping all of the switches in the entire panel.

After we were all done just getting the power shut off, the ceiling medallion was in place and the power was back on, I said, “Hey, we actually re-booted the house today!” I’m pretty sure Travel Man laughed at that one, and told me I should write a blog post about our adventure. So I did.

Many times, the time that Travel Man and I spend around the house together is limited. Sometimes we choose to focus on the house , and make the most of that time and get a few needed repairs done. Other times we don’t worry about the fixes around the house and we just focus on us spending some time together. That’s when we usually go to Disneyland to do some serious people watching.

How’s your “Things to get done around the House” list going? What’s the last thing in your house that got repaired or updated?

This post has been linked to the GRAND Social linky

8 comments Posted in Around the House, DIY Projects, Travel Man

A Sweet Little Valentine Dessert

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Yes it’s a few days after Valentine’s Day, but I wanted to share our sweet dessert with you all. Travel Man was lucky enough to be home for this Valentine’s Day, and cooked me a great dinner that included steak, shrimp, au gratin potatoes, and green beans. A yummy treat. The food was great, and I’m sure tasted so good because I took a back seat in the kitchen. Travel Man made the dinner, and I made the dessert. A great team effort.

Our dessert was some brownies I baked from a box mix. I watched the pan carefully while it was baking because I wanted the brownies to turn out extra ooey and gooey. And they did. I made these in the morning right after breakfast so they had plenty of time to be completely cooled.

For serving, I dug out my little heart-shaped cookie cutter and sculpted the brownies that you see here on the plates. Then we added some creamy, delicious, french vanilla ice cream, and enjoyed a sweet dessert feast. Just a simple little dessert made with love, and lots of chocolatey goodness.

Did you bake any special treats for your Valentine?

2 comments Posted in Around the House, Baking, Holidays

I Need a Garden Plan.

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Renee Spindle

Yes folks we are presently heading into the third week of February. I live in Southern California, the land of sunshine and warm weather. I have got to get my garden plan together early this year. Got to!! Last year I had a pitiful tomato harvest, and I’m sure one of the reasons this happened was just because I started way too late. I have vowed, mostly to myself, that this year I WILL get my garden going earlier, get the tomatoes started earlier, and cross my fingers for a bountiful harvest.

After quite a few rainfalls over past month or so, this is what my garden plot currently looks like. There are a few raised garden beds off to the right of this photo, and they are the only thing weedless in the garden right now.

The weeds, of course, have completely taken over and dashed any hopes I may have had of making this an easy Spring clean up. I say Spring because it’s Southern California, and as soon as the rain slows down for us it is Spring. Flowers are blooming, weeds are bustling, the time is right for getting ready to plant.

My plan for this Spring is to try to add one more raised bed, and of course the weeds will be obliterated before any other activities can begin. My favorite veggies to plant are; zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, butternut squash, bell peppers, and jalapenos. We had a bumper crop of jalapenos last year, and they make for great cooking all year round. Oh and I will definitely be adding some cucumber plants for making our yummy homemade pickles.

Getting the soil ready for planting is definitely the most time-consuming part of the gardening process. Over the next two weeks Travel Man and I will be rototilling, digging and raking all of those rotten weeds out-of-the-way. We have a fairly good-sized composter that will have some pretty magnificent dirt in it right about now. This premium dirt will get added to one of the existing raised beds to make the soil all healthy and wonderful for the new garden. Then we’ll finish making all the dirt really pretty and smooth so we can get the planting going.

I’m looking forward to getting this year’s garden going, and getting some dirt under my fingernails. There’s something so refreshing about digging in the dirt.

Are you planting a garden this year?