Dear Recipe writers,
When you develop a recipe called ‘Chocolate Chip Muffins’ that only has about 6 ingredients in it, why not make sure you get all the directions right, pretty please? In fact, you should have said how much milk to add and how much batter to fill each muffin cup with. Why not use butter instead of veggie oil? This seasoned baker tried your blasted recipe twice to try out her new mixer and oven. She is quite disappointed in the results. And when you say- ‘These muffins are requested for breakfast every day at our inn’, you get said baker all interested in trying these flops. One thing-they taste better than they look. Said baker didn’t open the oven door once and even blamed big footed son for walking around the kitchen like an elephant. Live and learn and find another recipe!

Here’s the same plant (extreme left) kast year when I brought it home from the garden center. The other plants didn’t make it.

You can see my beloved ‘Mom mom’ in a few photos with her hair in pin curls!

These were taken with my camera phone as I had forgotten my digital camera. The show was excellent. I know the music from having the Broadway show CD. I’ve been interested in the Titanic since the movie. We did get married on April 14th too (when it sank). In fact, the guy that boards at mom’s house mentioned this to Brian and me on our wedding day.
We’ve seen quite a few Titanic related exhibits and shows-ones down in Atlantic City and Orlando and now the musical.

Mom and me outside the ‘box office’ after seeing the musical This is the same theatre we use to go as kids. I remember standing in a line that wrapped around to the corner when we went to see ‘Star Wars’ back in 1977.
This is the stage-you can see the capital’s wheel in the middle. There were metal steps and a platform there, so the scenes were mostly in different levels. The opening scene showed the cast looking at the ‘floating city’ stage left. Many of the cast members played both 1st and 3rd class passengers.
Sean had a young lady about his age sit next to him. I think they were the two youngest people in the theatre! Mom and I got a kick out of that. We had a ‘red hat’ group of ladies in front of us and the rest of the audience was mostly elderly.

I just ordered tickets for a matinee showing of Titanic in my hometown for this afternoon (local production)! Sean and I are taking mom. He doesn’t seem that thrilled that we have to leave here around noon to pick up mom for the 2 o’clock show. Yes it takes us that long to get ready and out of the house. I am excited because I love the soundtrack from the Broadway show. I’ll check in tonight to let you know how it was.

Oh joy! The local weather guy, Glenn ‘Hurricane’ Schwartz (who we have met) said to expect 20 odd days of over 90 degree weather this summer. It’s dry already!
I was out late this afternoon planting flower seeds. The home center had 40% off the unusual seeds I like-purple and lime color zinnias and white marigolds. I planted them plus some Cosmos. My allium garden got weedy, so I asked Brian to dig a footer around the perimeter of it. I think he dug up about 10 daffodils, though I didn’t run across them when I was planting the seeds. The above flower seeds are no trouble at all. You just have to remember to just cover them with a light topping of 1/4 inch of soil. These are from the last few years.


I cooked a turkey meatloaf for dinner, which was good. I think my dishwasher isn’t set in it’s place well enough because when I open the door, it almost touches the floor and the rubber fittings on the top and sides seems to be showing too much. I guess I should call to get that corrected.
I have all the things I need for the tile work and tin work and wood trim around the new windows. I’m taking a deep breath before I start anything.
I got some more flowers at the home center, many of which were pot bound. I planted about 5 pots, two of which are teapots! I found some pale yellow phlox and put them in with the few roses that I have. This particular bed has a nice border of Sweet William. I’m almost finished. I like to get all my planting done by June 1st and then the rest of the year is maintenance.

After his surgery, he was lowered into water so he wouldn’t hurt himself if he started kicking.

Barbaro and his surgeon (that’s a news trailer on the bottom).

23 pins and a few plates in his back leg.
~Update-Sean and I did take a drive down Rt. 926 after we went to the local home center. He was driving and was going to pull into the hospital drive, but a police officer was there. We only saw a few cars and two local news vans next to the main building. The 11 o’clock news said there was a major news conference there sometime today. I think we missed it. We saw the signs on the fence wishing Barbaro well, which was heartwarming. Jade McCarthy, a local newsperson had an ‘exclusive’ with Barbaro. They showed her talking with the vet and petting a rather quiet Barbaro.

I promised Brian a pot roast and I delivered tonight! I am really tired from a hectic week. It was an ok roast, just a bit on the strong side. The asparagus was tough and a little overcooked. I’m learning to use the stove, and it takes time. : ) But the ‘smashed potatoes’ were yummy, thanks to a recipe in my head from Rachael Ray. I cut up red potatoes and cooked them with the skins on. After they cooked, I ‘smashed’ them and added dried parsley, salt, pepper, butter and the secret ingredient light sour cream! We had cranberry sauce and a nice romaine salad with edamane (raw soy beans) and beefsteak tomato tossed with a Vidalia dressing to make up for the squooshy asparagus.
Clean up was a breeze. I had so many pots, some are soaking in the dishpan! The sink is so big and pretty. Swanstone is as smooth as glass and cleans up nicely. I got a retractable faucet which should help clean that monster sink.
The funniest thing earlier was me forgetting where everything is-like the spices and my corning oven dish. Ha-ha-what an airhead.

Yahoo! The sink and dishwasher are working after a month of hauling a dishpan up and down the basement steps to use the sink there. We are running the dishwasher right now with about three things in it-just to see how it works.
I’m happy and a bit disappointed as Rob, the PM, chickened out on the tinwork. He looked at it again, but I couldn’t find the directions on how to install it (I just looked at the website again and it’s not that complicated). Mom suggested having my brother Ken help us with it. We could wait until he has his kitchen all finished or find someone who can install it or do it ourselves. I think if we take our time, we shouldn’t have any problems as the areas aren’t large where it has to go, but that could be tricky too. I see template making in our future.

Barbaro, the ‘former’ race horse is still nearby at the New Bolton Center. He has about 23 screws in his back leg. They emerged him in water when he was coming out of the anesthesia from his 4 hour operation in case he started to kick. They are showing people coming to the hospital leaving him carrots and apples. I recognized this one lady from a newsclip and sure enough it was a lady I worked with from Sean’s school years ago! Small world. : )

Guess I will go mail some birthday gifts later on to my good friend in Illinois. I haven’t mailed anything at the post office for a month and I don’t really miss it. I have one bid so far on 7 eBay listings that end today. I’ll get more into that now.