Under a Blue Moon

Friday Favorites

Days of Old….. ◊ Untitled ◊ Resting mother… ◊ Shabby Vintage Tins

So I really don't have any favorites to share this week. Other than the lovely photo images above (which aren't mine – in case there was any confusion – links to the photographer's pages posted below the collage…). It was a crazy busy work week. I had to cover for two people that were out this week along with keeping up with my own work. I'm typing this Thursday evening (and a short week to boot!) and I am whooped.

I find that when I have a short week (work-wise) that it's more exhausting than a regular week. Mainly because you are trying to get five days of work in four. And since I was covering for two other people it was actually like FIFTEEN work days crammed into four! Do the math!

I did have some fun this week. My cousin and I had lunch on Wednesday which was a fun little diversion. We went to our (mine and Rick's) local hangout and sat outside and had lovely salads and a good chat. It's so important to take those kinds of breaks.

Today my mother in law is coming to stay for a couple of days. We are planning on heading to Carmel for lunch tomorrow and then to hit up one of our favorite nurseries. The weather promises to be lovely.

Our weather has been SO weird. It was 98 degrees when we (Rick) were replacing the Indian Hawthorn out front on Monday and again on Tuesday. But Wednesday and Thursday were in the 60's and so windy. Tomorrow should be a reasonable 80 and then back up to the 90's on Saturday and Sunday! What is up with that?

The garden has been looking spectacular thanks to Rick. I'm hoping we can spend some time out there this weekend with the sparkly lights and chandelier and the fountain tinkling in the background. I have plans to make a slip cover for chaise lounge (just out of shot on the right) and found the perfect fabric for it. I can't wait to share it here with you. I just got the sample of the fabric and it is even prettier than I was hoping. Now I need to order the fabric and get sewing.

Tonight, while Rick was out mowing the lawn, our young neighbors across the street came by with cutely packaged home made cookies. They are getting married on Saturday and they are having their rehearsal dinner at their house tonight. The cookies had a tag on it with their phone numbers in case the noise or parking gets to be intrusive. It was such a nice gesture. They invited us to come over for the festivities but since we'll have a guest we had to pass. I want to come up with some nice wedding gift for them. Since we don't know them well (do they drink? Like gardening?) I'm tempted to do a little gift basket for their dog. I think pet owners always love it when you do something nice for their animal.

I hope you have a splendid weekend!

Keto snacks

Let's address the elephants in the room. Wine isn't necessarily Keto but I count it in my overall carb count for the day and make room for it. I can't give up EVERYTHING. And yes I put ice in my wine. Go ahead and judge. It was 98 degrees here today.

You'll also notice the lip smudges on the glass because I kept forgetting it was a prop and would take sips between photo shots.

I have a few "tricks" that I employ to keep me on the Keto way of eating. My morning muffin is my number one thing that makes it so much easier. And canapes (or appetizers/snacks). Remember the Cher character in Mermaids? For her, a meal of canapes was the way to go and I can totally get on board with that. But from a Keto point of view it's a struggle. I mean there is only so much cheese you can eat.

I mostly miss the crunch of things. Like a potato chip. Or…a potato chip. I saw a couple of recipes for zucchini chips so I thought I would give it a go.

This is a recipe that lends itself to those obscenely big zucchinis your neighbors try to foist on you during the Summer. But any size zucchini will do. I just think the bigger diameter works better. I had to work with medium sized zucchinis. I slice them as thin as I can with a mandolin. I like to leach out some of the moisture by placing them on a paper towel and then sprinkling with a bit of salt.

I let them sweat for about 20 minutes then dry them off with a paper towel. In the meantime preheat the oven to 425° F and place a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Or jelly roll pan. I think technically this is a jelly roll pan. And by the looks of it the thing is perfectly seasoned. I think I have had that pan for about 40 years.

Sprinkle with shredded Parmesan cheese. I used about 1/4 cup for one medium sized zucchini. You can add a sprinkle of garlic salt if you like. I find the salt in the Parmesan is plenty though.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, depending on the thickness of your slices. With the mandolin they are about 1/8" thick. You want the Parmesan to be a dark golden brown. The zucchini themselves never entirely crisp up. They retain a kind of creamy consistency but the parmesan does get crispy. You will need to serve and eat these pretty quickly. They still taste good if left to sit for a while but they lose the crispiness pretty quickly.

To recap:

1 zucchini, sliced to about 1/8"
Salt
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425° F. Slice the zucchini and place on paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and let sit (and sweat) for about 20 minutes. Blot with additional paper towel. Put a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and place zucchini slices on parchment. Sprinkle with Parmesan. Bake for 12-15 minutes, checking after 10 minutes – if it looks like the Parmesan is getting too brown remove from oven. Serve immediately.

I have a couple of other go to Keto snacks – I try to keep them at a minimum because they tend to be high in sodium. I like to take turkey pepperoni and cook it in the microwave until it is crisp. About 20-30 seconds. I also LOVE Trader Joe's Hot & Spicy dill pickle chips. They are sooo good. Celery with cream cheese is good too. I also realized I could have the occasional spoonful of peanut butter. Perfect energy boost in the afternoon when energy is lagging. As always – anything in moderation.

Memorial Day and the unofficial start to Summer

"May we never forget freedom isn't free." ~unknown

Another late start Monday. I took Friday off and watched our granddaughter on Friday and Saturday while her parents had a quick get-away. She will be two in July and is at that yummy age where she is talking a mile a minute (and I have no idea what she is saying 80% of the time…) and is so affectionate and just wants to play play play. Rick drove down to see us on Saturday and she had a marvelous time bossing him around. She does this adorable thing where she holds out her hand and says "Hand?" and then she'll drag you off to see something.

We are going to spend this beautiful Memorial Day working out in the garden. It has been so cold and gloomy for California and finally the weather has turned around and it will be quite warm and sunny today. We have a flower bed along side the driveway that we planted Indian Hawthorn and it just has never looked all that great. We have one Indian Hawthorn that has beautiful glossy green leaves and pretty pink flowers so we decided to plant a whole row of them hoping they would form a low hedge along the driveway and walkway. But the ones we got have bronzy leaves and after they flower the blossom turn rust colored and never drop off so the plant looks dead most of the time. We decided to cut our losses and take them out and replace them with jasmine. Jasmine looks good all year round and smells heavenly for most of the Summer.

Our driveway and walkway are pink. I would love to replace it but it is still perfectly serviceable and not in the budget. I'll post an after shot once we get the jasmine in.

Well I better get on with my day before it gets too hot to be out there.

Friday Favorites

Highgate1 ◊ Perfect… ◊ Sad Seahorse ◊ Parasol

I have been coveting these adorable Kate Spade gingham flats but couldn't, in a million years, justify the price tag for such a trend driven pair of shoes (or any shoes, for that matter). I wandered into Aldo this week and found an incredible dupe for a fraction of the cost. Score!
Anthropologie is having a big sale right now…cute post earrings…pretty hoops…house numbers…
Has anyone read/seen Martha Stewart's latest book Martha's Flowers? I'm tempted… The flowers she chose to include are almost all ones I love and have in my own garden so it would be nice to be inspired by her pictures and glean some more knowledge. I loved her Gardening: Month by Month book
Have you seen Daniel Blagovich's Little White House? He built it from scratch using architectural salvage. Now why can't I find that kind of salvage? I'm always looking. He has an Instagram account too

We made it to another weekend! Mine technically started last night because I have the day off today. I am going to spend the next two days with my granddaughter while her parents are attending a music festival. The rest of the weekend is wide open.

It has been uncharacteristically cool the past few days and will continue through part of the weekend. Then bam! Up in the high 80s come Sunday. Pick a temperature California, and stick with it!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Book Report

I haven't done a book report in six months so I thought it was time to review a few of the books I have read recently. As always when I say read I really mean listen so I'll include my thoughts on the narration as well.

I continued my binge reading of Louise Penny so I'll review the last three books I've read in her Inspector Gamache series.

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny: The seventh book in the series takes us back to Three Pines which I was happy about. Book six was set mostly in Quebec City and I missed all the denizens of Three Pines. The story centers around Clara Morrow's rising success in the art world and the murder of an estranged childhood friend the night of the celebration of her art show. Nothing like waking up to a dead body in your garden to take the glow off a lovely evening. There are no lack of suspects since the murdered woman was an art critic who's reviews had ended or derailed many an artist's career, Clara's included.

The underlying theme of this book is forgiveness. Can Clara forgive Peter for his jealousy and inability to be supportive of her career, can Olivier forgive Gamache for putting him in prison for a murder he didn't commit, can the rest of of Three Pines forgive Olivier for his greediness, and can Jean Guy forgive Gamache for what he perceives as leaving him for dead during the raid. It is these subplots and character development that keep me coming back for more Louise Penny. The actual murder story line is secondary to me.

The part when the murderer is revealed was a little heavy handed and clichéd (it was a dark and stormy night, lights flickered…yada yada). I think the story could have been tightened up a bit. A lot of time was spent rehashing the raid that happened in the previous book. And while addiction (both Jean Guy's and the murder victim's) was a theme throughout I don't think the Alcoholics Anonymous parts rang true. Certainly a man of Gamache's profession would have a better understanding of AA and not need so much background digging on the topic. Narration by Ralph Cosham, as always, spectacular. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny: The eighth book in the Inspector Gamache series and, truth be told, my least favorite so far. The choir director of a monastery in the wilderness of Quebec is murdered. Outsiders are rarely, if ever, allowed into the monastery so all signs point to one of the two dozen cloistered monks as being the murderer. The monks are world famous for their recording of Gregorian chants and I do love how Louise Penny educates her reader on the topic. However there is just so much you can read about a monastery and chanting. It just dragged on and on. And then we have the continued story line of the factory raid from two books ago. By the end I really didn't care who murdered the choir director. The books spans just a couple of days but it seemed like it dragged on for months. Narration – same as above. ⭐⭐⭐

How the Light Gets In by Louse Penny: We are back in Three Pines for the ninth book in the series and this one was classic Louise Penny. The story line is about the last surviving quintuplet who was murdered just as she was getting ready to visit Three Pines for Christmas. Louise Penny often fictionalizes an event that mirrors something that actually happened. Like with monks and their Gregorian chants (remember back in the 80's when they were all the rage?) and in this case, the famous story of the first surviving set of quintuplets (real life: Dionne quintuplets, fictionalized: Pineault quints) that were made wards of the state and basically a tourist attraction for all of their childhood.

Where the last book was all about forgiveness this one is about redemption. I can't say much without giving away the story but it made the previous two books worth it. There is a secondary story line about corruption in the Sûreté that was just riveting. I was very much on the edge of my seat reading this one, especially the last two chapters. And there is a scene with Jean Guy, Ruth and Rosa that will make you cry. I listened to the last chapter twice, it was so good. Narration – fabulous (and sadly there is only one more narrated by Ralph Cosham). ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Okay – on to different authors!

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng: This has been on the best seller list for ages and I finally got around to reading it and I think it deserves about 75% of the hype. I think the author is very adept at character development and setting the climate.

Quick synopsis: It's the story of an itinerant artist, Mia, who is trying to keep one step ahead of her past, moving to an affluent Ohio suburb so her daughter, Pearl, can have some stability, particularly with her education, and how their lives intersect with the affluent Richardsons who own their rental duplex. It delves into financial inequality, racial inequality and the dynamics of a mother/daughter relationship. You think you are going to root for the underdog (in this case the poor artist Mia) but actually everyone is flawed and everyone has redeeming qualities. You don't think Mrs. Richardson is going to be the least bit sympathetic but once you get to know her you can sort of understand her sheltered, yet idealistic views on life. You think Mia is the one to root for but she has done some questionable things as well so it's hard to pick a side, as it were.

The story opens up at the ending and then does a flashback to half a year or so earlier. Parts of it read a bit young adult because so many of the characters are teens. The author does a great job of developing the female characters but not so much with the males who end up rather one dimensional. With the exception of the youngest Richardson son who marginally gets more page time. I do say the relationship between Mrs. Richardson and her youngest daughter didn't quite ring true. The explanation on why she was so hard on her didn't seem plausible considering her general life philosophies.

I did thoroughly enjoy the book and went through it quite quickly. Narration by Jennifer Lim was good. No complaints there. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The Luster of Lost Things by Sophie Chen Keller: This is the story of 13 year old Walter Lavender Jr. whose pilot father disappeared on a flight before he was born. Walter has a motor speech disorder which prevents him from speaking properly and as a result he is very isolated and shunned except in his mother's enchanted bakery where there is an element of magic to all of her baked treats. Walter has an uncanny ability to find lost things and it was fun reading the descriptions of him working with various people to find their lost objects. When a book that is the root of the bakery's magic disappears Walter sets off through New York City with his clumsy Labrador to find it before the bakery is shut down.

He meets all kinds of interesting characters as he is trying to track down the book, all who, like him, live on the fringes of society. His interactions with them lead him to make some discoveries about himself that have contributed to his isolation. So, in a sense, he is finding himself as well as the book.

The book dragged a bit in the middle and then towards then end you think things are wrapping up but then there is a twist and off you (and Walter) go again. Sophie Chen Keller does a fabulous job of making you feel the mounting anxiety Walter is experiencing as the day wears on and he is unable to find all the pages of the book. There wasn't a lot of relief from that tension for a good portion of the book. The book was narrated by Kirby Heyborne who narrated Gone Girl. He does a splendid job with Walter and makes each other character really stand out. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I read a few other books but they aren't worth reviewing. One of them I couldn't even remember the plot and had to look it up! Bad review for a book, for sure. I am currently reading The Blue Castle by L.M Montgomery. I'm only three chapters in so far. I find L.M. Montgomery to be very charming and so far I am enjoying this book.

Any recommendations for books that you have read and enjoyed?

Monday

Happy Monday. Sorry for the late start today. We have had guests this weekend and it threw my game off a little.

In lieu of the usual fare around here this this just be a chatty post.

On Saturday we had my sister, brother in law, their oldest daughter and her two sons over for dinner. The youngest son is just three weeks old!

There is nothing like having people over to get your house all tidied up. The garden too. We brought out the outdoor chandeliers and put the seat cushions back on all the chairs. It was too chilly to eat outdoors but we had our cocktails outside. We worked so hard on the back yard last year and this year we can just sit back and enjoy it. Although we keep buying more plants that we have to figure out where to put.

We bought a new tabletop bbq in honor of the occasion. One that is fueled by propane so I can easily bbq during the week. None of that bother of lighting coals and hoping they catch. I made Greek lemon chicken kebabs that were delicious and very easy to throw together. For a side dish I made one of my favorite thing to serve guests – a tart from The Forest Feast. I switch it up all the time and will top it with zucchini or, like Saturday, with tomatoes. It always impresses people and is a big hit.

On Sunday I finished up the weeding. Well finished the major Spring weeding I should say. More weeds will show up but for now at least the place looks respectable. I also planted a fuschia and some impatiens.. Fuschias are doing surprisingly well for me. Usually they start a rapid and inevitable decline as soon as I get them home but the last two I bought are thriving. I've always loved fuschias. I remember getting scolded as a child because I loved to pop the flower buds before they opened.

Well I best get my week started here. And this posted before I have to change the title to Tuesday.

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